Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop

2025-03-04T11:15:01Z

77.174.243.90: /* Design Consultation Pre-Workshop & Workshop Coral Harbour */

Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop

2025-03-04T11:11:30Z

77.174.243.90: /* Closing */

Now that I had a list of of solid and applicable guidelines to the workshop agenda, it was time to organize the workshop itself.

<div class="next_choice">

You are '''"invited"''' to follow along with this preparation.

Alternatively,

'''"Keep going"''' to jump straight into the workshop.</div>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Workshop Invitations" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Workshop Invitations|Invitation: Workshop preparations]]</span>

=3 day Workshop Gjoa Haven=

At the evening of the November 21, it was time to start our Gathering.

Attendees from the South who would join for the gathering included the director and program manager of Genome Canada, a recently retired wildlife biologist who had run the BearWatch project in the Northwest Territories, a project manager for BearWatch, and three co-PI's of the project- two of them who had arrived three days prior to the gathering.

<div class="next_choice">'''"Keep going"''' for the final gathering per agenda point. Each session will be accompanied by guidelines, insights, motivations or research questions that underly the decision made for that segment.

Or,

'''"Detour"''' to skip straight to the Coral Harbour workshop. You will not return here.</div>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="workshop Coral Harbour" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="detour">[[workshop Coral Harbour#Design Consultation Pre-Workshop & Workshop Coral Harbour|Detour to Cut 2:Coral Harbour Gathering]]</span>

=Opening: Movie Screening and a Feast=

Once we felt that people had settled in, and were comfortable, we opened the gathering with prayers and with some words from the Gjoa Haven HTA vice-chair, James Qitsualik, who had lead the project within the community.

We then screened the three community co-created movies: Voices of Thunder, Pihhiq, and the throatsinging film with Kathy and Janet.

[[File:20221121 182840.jpg|thumb]]

<div class="next_choice">
After the movies, it was time to eat.

As was explicitly put forward during the pre-workshop, food is a way to all find ourselves on common ground – we are all human. It's a way for people to feel comfortable. "Within the community we have human-to-human differences as well".</div>

=Polar Bear Landscape Presentation=

After the feast Marsha Brannigan, former wildlife biologist to the Northwest Territories presented on the governmental context within which the BearWatch project had played out.

This presentation was put on the agenda to sketch a contextual backdrop for the next couple of days. Although the presentation took 90 minutes, Branigan clearly had lots of experience with presenting for community members, and often built in "empty" slides, for people to ask questions or comments.

The opening evening ended with an invitation to come back the next days. We explained how the next three-day gathering was also part of the research project, and that people would be asked for their informed consent to be part of this research and to be photographed if they would come back over the next three days. We indicated our starting time, and explained the program for the next day: Science-presentations.

=Day 1: Science-Presentations, Opening and Singing=

The previous evening, around the time of closing prayers, news had started to trickle into the room about a young women that had passed away that day due to an accident. People had been visibly upset the evening before, and still were so when they came back the next day.

Elder Mary Aqilriaq, who was present to conduct the opening and closing prayers during this gathering requested to sing a song instead.

We all got up from our chairs as Mary led us into song. It was an emotional moment of shared grief and many people started crying in the room.

''"Mary is gold. Even people here and there were telling me "I am so happy that Mary was here."''

''"Mary was perfect for us. It's really important that you pick the right person. There elders that are used to doing... being a master of ceremony, welcoming people, being the elder, you know. You used her. Her prayers are from ''the heart''. Singing with her voice, even it is broken down. Giving it all she got. That's priceless. If you could get that. Sometimes, words... You don't have to talk, ey? (Tuppittia Qitualik)"''

=Introductions=

Originally, this would have been the moment that the Gathering would be opened with some welcoming words by PI Peter van Coeverden de Groot, and HTA vice-chair James Qitsualik.

However it seemed clear that somewhat of a transition was required before "business as usual could be picked up.

As the designated host of the gathering, I stepped up to express my sympathies and reiterated that this gathering was meant to provide a space where we can meet each other as people, with emotions and identities beyond our titles and official functions.

I read out the general agreed upon guiding principles "to meet in a good way" that emerged from the pre-workshop, and then pointed out where people could find a poster with these principles in the room.

After that, I passed the word to Peter, who initiated an introduction round across the room.

=Mx. Science Hosting=

This introduction included all southern researchers, and all the community-members who had been working to set-up the space and support the gathering in various ways.

This included, for example, Aida Porter, who had agreed to be present on the first and third day to take plenary notes - a request that had emerged from the pre-workshop, as to keep track and collect questions that could not be answered during the gathering.

It also included a formal introduction "Mx. Science" to all the workshop attendees who had not met me yet.

[[File:Resized 20221122 094412 8253.jpg|thumb|From left to right: Tuppittia Qitsualik (interpreter), me (Mx. Science), Prof. Whitelaw (Project PI), Brent Pukkiniaq (HTA-board member).]]

Although, I had not entirely anticipated taking the the role of a meeting moderator, it turned out to be expected from me - and I gladly stepped up, to do so.

<div class="next_choice">You have uncovered a landmark insights on the gaps and openings. Check it out to understand how gaps, provide a useful opening towards the materialization of ethical space.

'''"Keep going"''' if you want to learn about the scientific presentations instead.</div>

<span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Gaps, Openings and Possibilities" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Gaps, Openings and Possibilities|Landmark: Gaps, Openings and Possibilities]]</span>

=Scientific Presentations=

The first day of the Gathering was designed around presenting back to the community. Most of those were presentations were done remotely through the a starlink connection and zoom-presentation link.

Based on research I had conducted for a Research Assistance-ship on research communication, earlier in my PhD, I had asked presenters to use the "message box" (COMPASS, year) as a template to format their presentations with.

Preparing such a message box, can form a useful tool to "distil your knowledge in a way that resonates with your audience<ref>Green, S. J., Grorud-Colvert, K., & Mannix, H. (2018). Uniting science and stories: perspectives on the value of storytelling for communicating science. Facets, 3(1), 164-173.</ref>."

[[File:Message box.jpg|thumb]]

<div class="next_choice">Sadly, very few of the presenters had seemed to make use of this message box, nor did they time their presentations in accordance with the requested window of 7 minutes presentation, 7 minutes discussion. In combination with the technical challenges of keeping a remote connection stable up north, this day ended up taking much longer than anticipated- and did not provide any space for dialogue.</div>

<small><references /></small>

=Exhibition Danny Aaluk=

During the gathering I had installed an ongoing exhibition of Danny's work.

This exhibition was physically accessible, within the Gathering space, as well as digitally accessible through the Kumospace.

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<a href="https://www.canva.com/design/DAFRIhnStno/macvY5PLOhRmMq0snF17eQ/view?utm_content=DAFRIhnStno&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=embeds&utm_source=link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Art Gallery Danny Aaluk</a> by gingertheworld
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=Day 2: Building Igloo=

The second day of the workshop took a completely different shape.

Eight community members (three elders, four youth and the interpretor) joined with the eight participants from the south to build an igloo together.

[[File:DSC01326.jpg|thumb|Observing elders instructing the youth]]
[[File:DSC01358.jpg|thumb|Prof. Whitelaw receiving instructions on how to cut a block]]
[[File:DSC01425.jpg|thumb|Lifting blocks together]]
[[File:DSC01390.jpg|thumb|David Siksik carving space for the next block]]
[[File:Editted picture igloo.jpg|thumb|Group picture with finished igloo]]
[[File:Thumbnail IMG 4300001002003.jpg|thumb|Finished igloo]]

Community elders took the lead. And for the first hour, southern participants just observed.

As David and Jimmy discussed how to make the cuts and the outlines of where the igloo was to be built, they instructed the four young men that had joined to assist and learn, on what to do.

After a while, as agreed, two of the young men started to teach the southern researchers how to cut a block.

It became clear during the evaluation of the day that the elders had expected our blocks to all be "rejects". Our cuts were nevertheless clean enough for the blocks to be all used in the igloo.

Being able to build this structure together was considered by some southern participants as the highlight of the trip.

"(...) that's one of the, the most amazing days I've ever had." (Prof. Whitelaw, 2022 post workshop interview)

=Evaluation=

After finishing the structure and taking a group picture, we retreated into a warm tent for Bannock and "klik". In the tent, we did one evaluative circle in which everyone got an opportunity to share how they had experienced the building of the igloo. As we went around the circle, everyone shared.

[[File:Jpeg-imag.jpg|thumb]]

''"I am so appreciative. I have the biggest thankfulness in my heart now because, especially big hats off to the people that organized these events. And then we had really good leadership in all their activities, especially in the building where you could see people are cooperating with each other.''
''They're building relationships. And with our guests and with our community, we're making, we're, uh, making, uh, healing relationships with each other in that we are become, to know each other as humans and that we're treating each other with respect. And to share a meal and a good hot tea that, that kind of relationship building exercises. It was exactly what I needed and I really appreciates you have organized this'' (Elder Mary Aqilriaq)"

''"I'm very proud to be here today, and I didn't expect the meal, the good meal, the tea, and all the laughter. This is the first time building an igloo. The knowledge that was passed down, I want to thank these elders too for being here, having to be here, having to lead'' (Percy Ikkuallaq)."

''"(...) there's sort of this organic unfolding of an understanding between people. Um, and that's just beautiful to, uh, to, to observe and experience. And then we all come and kind of a little tentative first. And then, you know, we, we observe and we watch. And then confidence increases, and then we try to emulate. So it's sort of this connection, uh, between people is what I enjoyed most today. And I'm grateful for that'' (PI van Coeverden de Groot)".

<div class="next_choice">The igloo became a '''"Landmark"''' for the remainder of the workshop. Why don't you go out there and see who you meet?</div>

<span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Being with-" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Being-with|Landmark: Being-with]]</span>

=Day 3: Living With Polar Bears=

Day three of the gathering consisted of a panel-conversation on the future of polar bear monitoring and management. Its goal was to discuss how the tools that were developed through the BearWatch project could be implemented in future projects.

The idea of setting up a panel had also come from the pre-workshop. One of the questions I had asked during the pre-workshop was how we could ensure that there would be enough space for different voices to be heard, and in which ways we could make people feel comfortable enough to share. The suggestion was raised to erect a panel consisting of the following people: 2 senior researchers, 2 HTO people, 2 youth, 1 40/50 yr old, 2 elders.

Co-PI Peter van Coeverden de Groot moderated this third day.

Aida Porter, was unwell on this last day, so I took over her role as a note-taker by taking graphic notes (on-the-spot visualization).

[[File:Graphic notes.png|thumb]]

=Closing=

The morning after the third day we met with a small group to de-brief and evaluate the gathering.

Present at this evaluation were two elders that had joined the pre-workshop, the Gjoa Haven HTA vice-chair and our interpreter, as well as the BearWatch PI's, the former government biologist of NWT, and two BearWatch researchers including me. The funders had to leave earlier that morning.

<div class="next_choice">
There is little time to process the feedback that emerged in this evaluation right now. But it has been recorded.

'''"Keep going"''' and catch a charter plane to Coral Harbour, where a second workshop is planned.</div>

=Design Consultation Pre-Workshop & Workshop Coral Harbour=

This particular cut continues on a different track. The final workshop in Coral Harbour. The research in this community has emerged along completely different timelines and relational dynamics.

<div class="next_choice">You have run into a pressure ridge. Detour to Cut 3 to read more about the preparation phase of the final workshop in Coral Harbour. Beware, however, that if you detour here, it will be hard to find your way back to this cut. Maybe it is better to trail along the pressure ridge and find your way through.</div>

[[File:Landing coral harbour.jpg|thumb]]

<span class="detour link" data-page-title="Collage and Zine-Making" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Collage and Zine-Making#Fall 2022 Coral Harbour|Cut 3: Fall 2022, prepping in Coral Harbour]]</span>

<span class="redirective ice pressure ridge link" data-page-title="Remote Planning" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Ice-pressure_ridge">[[Remote Planning|Ice pressure ridge: Remote Planning]]</span>

Fall 2022 Gjoa Haven

2025-03-04T10:55:39Z

77.174.243.90: /* Lessons Learnt */

After losing a week in travel delays, there is a lot of preparation left to do for the final workshop in Gjoa Haven- starting with the organization of a "special meeting" with the HTA to finetune the agenda, invitees, and logistical set-up of the meeting.

Luckily, it is much easier to set up such meetings in Gjoa Haven, than it was in Coral Harbour. Due to the much wider relational network here, it was more clear how to engage in collective dialogue and logistically produce a gathering that meets community desires.

<div class="next_choice">'''"Keep Going"''' to find out what the final workshop agendas in both communities, how we evaluated them and what was reported back to funders.

or,

'''"Detour"''' to cut 2 along our workshop preparations step-by-step. You will not return here. </div>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops#Design Consultation Pre-Workshop & Workshop Gjoa Haven|Detour to cut 2: (Pre-)Gatherings]]</span>

=Winter 2022 Final Workshops=

In Gjoa Haven we organized a three-day gathering, that was preceded by a two-day pre-workshop that fed into the design of the gathering.

In Coral Harbour we ended u with a two day final gathering, spread between school activities and the hamlet conference room.

[[File:Agenda GH gathering.png|thumb]]

[[File:Print poster CH.png|thumb]]

<div class="next_choice">'''"Keep Going"''' to find out how we evaluated both workshops and what was reported back to funders.

or,

'''"Detour"''' to Cut 2 for a day-to-day journey through each workshop.

</div>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop#3 day Workshop Gjoa Haven|Detour to Cut 2:Final Gatherings]]</span>

=Evaluations=

Both workshops were evaluated in different ways.

In Gjoa Haven, we had conducted a pre-workshop to agree upon terms of engagement and held multiple evaluations to understand participant experiences.

In Coral Harbour, the funders were not present for the workshop, nor was our local co-PI.

Neither had the conditions been in place for us to organize a pre-workshop with community members during the earlier visit in the community.

So, instead we opted to hold a smaller pre-workshop, and post-workshop meeting with the two BearWatch PI's, the former government biologist of NWT and I.

=Emergent insights=

In February 2023, the next year, I conducted eight follow-up individual interviews with the Southern researchers, government biologist, funders of the BearWatch project and the interpretor from Gjoa Haven to discuss their experiences of the workshops, two months after it had taken place.

<div class="next_choice">Not all insights are immediate, or measurable.

Sometimes, possibilities to think with- emerge from in-between the lines, rather than within them - and they may take time to unveil themselves.

My efforts to employ creative methods and aesthetic action, as a way to create new conditions and possibilities to encounter each other during the final gatherings, had seemingly succeeded in some ways, while meeting resistance in others.

While recovering from an intense final season of the BearWatch project, slowly but surely, a figure, with a renewed meaning materializes: The Shipwreck.

Explore how this '''"landmark"''' insight became a defining feature of this knowledge-land-scape.

Or,

'''"Keep Going"''' to reach the end of this cut.</div>

<span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="The Wreck-site" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="landmark">[[The Wreck-site|Landmark: The Wreck-site]]</span>

=Another Point of Beginning=

You have reached "Another Point of Beginning".

This is where we take account for our journey so far.

You can trace the path you have taken through this Knowledge-Land-Scape by clicking the "trace" bar in the upper left corner of your screen. It will allow you to account for some of the insights that your journey has given you.

The map below shows you the full extent of wayfaring possibilities of the scape.

<HTML><iframe width="768" height="432" src="https://miro.com/app/live-embed/uXjVLuaaSIw=/?moveToViewport=-6303,-1839,4422,3256&embedId=190872630107" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allow="fullscreen; clipboard-read; clipboard-write" allowfullscreen></iframe></html>

<div class="next_choice"> Cut 3 has guided you along the journey of the community-based dynamics of the BearWatch project.

You have been able to thread your own way alongside me and many of the other agential forces that shaped this project.

In the context of community-based research our movements through the world matter. Are we simply transporting ourselves from one point to another, leaving inanimate traces towards predetermined destinations, or are we finding our way along, in lively response to our own unfolding narratives and that of others around us?

'''"Keep Going"''' to explore how the different research output creations have continued their material agencies beyond this cut.</div>

=Beyond the Cut=

[[File:Beyond the cut.png|thumb]]

Over the course of 7 years, the BearWatch project has- among others:

a) optimized SNP and genetic sex profiling of polar bear feces - allowing non-invasive identification and sexing of individual polar bears, b) optimized meta-barcoding assays that allow the identification of vertebrate prey and plant diet identification from polar bear faeces - allowing non-invasive monitoring of diet switching of genetically tagged individual bears, c) determined the relationship between heavy metal contaminants in a polar bears faeces and it’s muscle, liver and fat profile- allowing for noninvasive monitoring of spatial and temporal contaminant loads across the Arctic and , d) optimized the species level detection of micro plastic in polar bear faeces - allowing for the real time monitoring of these contaminants in the arctic ecosystem.

Such non-invasive methods will be most valuable, however, when employed as part of sustainable collaborative efforts between biologists and Inuit communities.

The insights coming from my wayfaring method and prospective aesthetic action within the BearWatch project, have materialized in insights and spaces that may allow for continued work in Gjoa Haven on renewed terms of engagement.

Instead of participation and integration of Inuit Knowledge, follow-up research between BearWatch PI's and Gjoa Haven has now been formulated in terms of co-leadership and is preceded by a "setting of the table", which will include the negotiation of knowledge weaving methods and decision-making protocols under guidance of the ICC EEE protocols, and in according with the principles of Ethical Engagement.

<span class="detour to-cut-1 link" data-page-title="Voices of Thunder" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Voices of Thunder|Detour to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder]]</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Aesthetic_Action" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Aesthetic Action|Detour to Cut 2: Aesthetic Action Point of Beginning]]</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring the BearWatch Project" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Wayfaring the BearWatch Project|Detour to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BearWatch Project]]</span>

Fall 2022 Gjoa Haven

2025-03-04T10:55:03Z

77.174.243.90: /* Evaluations */

After losing a week in travel delays, there is a lot of preparation left to do for the final workshop in Gjoa Haven- starting with the organization of a "special meeting" with the HTA to finetune the agenda, invitees, and logistical set-up of the meeting.

Luckily, it is much easier to set up such meetings in Gjoa Haven, than it was in Coral Harbour. Due to the much wider relational network here, it was more clear how to engage in collective dialogue and logistically produce a gathering that meets community desires.

<div class="next_choice">'''"Keep Going"''' to find out what the final workshop agendas in both communities, how we evaluated them and what was reported back to funders.

or,

'''"Detour"''' to cut 2 along our workshop preparations step-by-step. You will not return here. </div>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops#Design Consultation Pre-Workshop & Workshop Gjoa Haven|Detour to cut 2: (Pre-)Gatherings]]</span>

=Winter 2022 Final Workshops=

In Gjoa Haven we organized a three-day gathering, that was preceded by a two-day pre-workshop that fed into the design of the gathering.

In Coral Harbour we ended u with a two day final gathering, spread between school activities and the hamlet conference room.

[[File:Agenda GH gathering.png|thumb]]

[[File:Print poster CH.png|thumb]]

<div class="next_choice">'''"Keep Going"''' to find out how we evaluated both workshops and what was reported back to funders.

or,

'''"Detour"''' to Cut 2 for a day-to-day journey through each workshop.

</div>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop#3 day Workshop Gjoa Haven|Detour to Cut 2:Final Gatherings]]</span>

=Evaluations=

Both workshops were evaluated in different ways.

In Gjoa Haven, we had conducted a pre-workshop to agree upon terms of engagement and held multiple evaluations to understand participant experiences.

In Coral Harbour, the funders were not present for the workshop, nor was our local co-PI.

Neither had the conditions been in place for us to organize a pre-workshop with community members during the earlier visit in the community.

So, instead we opted to hold a smaller pre-workshop, and post-workshop meeting with the two BearWatch PI's, the former government biologist of NWT and I.

=Lessons Learnt=

The Coral Harbour pre-workshop meeting was prefaced on "lessons-learnt" from the Gjoa Haven Gathering.

During this pre-workshop meeting, and with the input of the interpretor, we agreed upon certain processes to be applied in the Coral Harbour gathering.

Subsequently we evaluated these processes in a post-workshop evaluation with the same group of people.

=Emergent insights=

In February 2023, the next year, I conducted eight follow-up individual interviews with the Southern researchers, government biologist, funders of the BearWatch project and the interpretor from Gjoa Haven to discuss their experiences of the workshops, two months after it had taken place.

<div class="next_choice">Not all insights are immediate, or measurable.

Sometimes, possibilities to think with- emerge from in-between the lines, rather than within them - and they may take time to unveil themselves.

My efforts to employ creative methods and aesthetic action, as a way to create new conditions and possibilities to encounter each other during the final gatherings, had seemingly succeeded in some ways, while meeting resistance in others.

While recovering from an intense final season of the BearWatch project, slowly but surely, a figure, with a renewed meaning materializes: The Shipwreck.

Explore how this '''"landmark"''' insight became a defining feature of this knowledge-land-scape.

Or,

'''"Keep Going"''' to reach the end of this cut.</div>

<span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="The Wreck-site" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="landmark">[[The Wreck-site|Landmark: The Wreck-site]]</span>

=Another Point of Beginning=

You have reached "Another Point of Beginning".

This is where we take account for our journey so far.

You can trace the path you have taken through this Knowledge-Land-Scape by clicking the "trace" bar in the upper left corner of your screen. It will allow you to account for some of the insights that your journey has given you.

The map below shows you the full extent of wayfaring possibilities of the scape.

<HTML><iframe width="768" height="432" src="https://miro.com/app/live-embed/uXjVLuaaSIw=/?moveToViewport=-6303,-1839,4422,3256&embedId=190872630107" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allow="fullscreen; clipboard-read; clipboard-write" allowfullscreen></iframe></html>

<div class="next_choice"> Cut 3 has guided you along the journey of the community-based dynamics of the BearWatch project.

You have been able to thread your own way alongside me and many of the other agential forces that shaped this project.

In the context of community-based research our movements through the world matter. Are we simply transporting ourselves from one point to another, leaving inanimate traces towards predetermined destinations, or are we finding our way along, in lively response to our own unfolding narratives and that of others around us?

'''"Keep Going"''' to explore how the different research output creations have continued their material agencies beyond this cut.</div>

=Beyond the Cut=

[[File:Beyond the cut.png|thumb]]

Over the course of 7 years, the BearWatch project has- among others:

a) optimized SNP and genetic sex profiling of polar bear feces - allowing non-invasive identification and sexing of individual polar bears, b) optimized meta-barcoding assays that allow the identification of vertebrate prey and plant diet identification from polar bear faeces - allowing non-invasive monitoring of diet switching of genetically tagged individual bears, c) determined the relationship between heavy metal contaminants in a polar bears faeces and it’s muscle, liver and fat profile- allowing for noninvasive monitoring of spatial and temporal contaminant loads across the Arctic and , d) optimized the species level detection of micro plastic in polar bear faeces - allowing for the real time monitoring of these contaminants in the arctic ecosystem.

Such non-invasive methods will be most valuable, however, when employed as part of sustainable collaborative efforts between biologists and Inuit communities.

The insights coming from my wayfaring method and prospective aesthetic action within the BearWatch project, have materialized in insights and spaces that may allow for continued work in Gjoa Haven on renewed terms of engagement.

Instead of participation and integration of Inuit Knowledge, follow-up research between BearWatch PI's and Gjoa Haven has now been formulated in terms of co-leadership and is preceded by a "setting of the table", which will include the negotiation of knowledge weaving methods and decision-making protocols under guidance of the ICC EEE protocols, and in according with the principles of Ethical Engagement.

<span class="detour to-cut-1 link" data-page-title="Voices of Thunder" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Voices of Thunder|Detour to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder]]</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Aesthetic_Action" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Aesthetic Action|Detour to Cut 2: Aesthetic Action Point of Beginning]]</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring the BearWatch Project" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Wayfaring the BearWatch Project|Detour to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BearWatch Project]]</span>

Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop

2025-03-04T08:56:04Z

77.174.243.90: /* Day 2: Building Igloo */

Now that I had a list of of solid and applicable guidelines to the workshop agenda, it was time to organize the workshop itself.

<div class="next_choice">

You are '''"invited"''' to follow along with this preparation.

Alternatively,

'''"Keep going"''' to jump straight into the workshop.</div>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Workshop Invitations" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Workshop Invitations|Invitation: Workshop preparations]]</span>

=3 day Workshop Gjoa Haven=

At the evening of the November 21, it was time to start our Gathering.

Attendees from the South who would join for the gathering included the director and program manager of Genome Canada, a recently retired wildlife biologist who had run the BearWatch project in the Northwest Territories, a project manager for BearWatch, and three co-PI's of the project- two of them who had arrived three days prior to the gathering.

<div class="next_choice">'''"Keep going"''' for the final gathering per agenda point. Each session will be accompanied by guidelines, insights, motivations or research questions that underly the decision made for that segment.

Or,

'''"Detour"''' to skip straight to the Coral Harbour workshop. You will not return here.</div>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="workshop Coral Harbour" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="detour">[[workshop Coral Harbour#Design Consultation Pre-Workshop & Workshop Coral Harbour|Detour to Cut 2:Coral Harbour Gathering]]</span>

=Opening: Movie Screening and a Feast=

Once we felt that people had settled in, and were comfortable, we opened the gathering with prayers and with some words from the Gjoa Haven HTA vice-chair, James Qitsualik, who had lead the project within the community.

We then screened the three community co-created movies: Voices of Thunder, Pihhiq, and the throatsinging film with Kathy and Janet.

[[File:20221121 182840.jpg|thumb]]

<div class="next_choice">
After the movies, it was time to eat.

As was explicitly put forward during the pre-workshop, food is a way to all find ourselves on common ground – we are all human. It's a way for people to feel comfortable. "Within the community we have human-to-human differences as well".</div>

=Polar Bear Landscape Presentation=

After the feast Marsha Brannigan, former wildlife biologist to the Northwest Territories presented on the governmental context within which the BearWatch project had played out.

This presentation was put on the agenda to sketch a contextual backdrop for the next couple of days. Although the presentation took 90 minutes, Branigan clearly had lots of experience with presenting for community members, and often built in "empty" slides, for people to ask questions or comments.

The opening evening ended with an invitation to come back the next days. We explained how the next three-day gathering was also part of the research project, and that people would be asked for their informed consent to be part of this research and to be photographed if they would come back over the next three days. We indicated our starting time, and explained the program for the next day: Science-presentations.

=Day 1: Science-Presentations, Opening and Singing=

The previous evening, around the time of closing prayers, news had started to trickle into the room about a young women that had passed away that day due to an accident. People had been visibly upset the evening before, and still were so when they came back the next day.

Elder Mary Aqilriaq, who was present to conduct the opening and closing prayers during this gathering requested to sing a song instead.

We all got up from our chairs as Mary led us into song. It was an emotional moment of shared grief and many people started crying in the room.

''"Mary is gold. Even people here and there were telling me "I am so happy that Mary was here."''

''"Mary was perfect for us. It's really important that you pick the right person. There elders that are used to doing... being a master of ceremony, welcoming people, being the elder, you know. You used her. Her prayers are from ''the heart''. Singing with her voice, even it is broken down. Giving it all she got. That's priceless. If you could get that. Sometimes, words... You don't have to talk, ey? (Tuppittia Qitualik)"''

=Introductions=

Originally, this would have been the moment that the Gathering would be opened with some welcoming words by PI Peter van Coeverden de Groot, and HTA vice-chair James Qitsualik.

However it seemed clear that somewhat of a transition was required before "business as usual could be picked up.

As the designated host of the gathering, I stepped up to express my sympathies and reiterated that this gathering was meant to provide a space where we can meet each other as people, with emotions and identities beyond our titles and official functions.

I read out the general agreed upon guiding principles "to meet in a good way" that emerged from the pre-workshop, and then pointed out where people could find a poster with these principles in the room.

After that, I passed the word to Peter, who initiated an introduction round across the room.

=Mx. Science Hosting=

This introduction included all southern researchers, and all the community-members who had been working to set-up the space and support the gathering in various ways.

This included, for example, Aida Porter, who had agreed to be present on the first and third day to take plenary notes - a request that had emerged from the pre-workshop, as to keep track and collect questions that could not be answered during the gathering.

It also included a formal introduction "Mx. Science" to all the workshop attendees who had not met me yet.

[[File:Resized 20221122 094412 8253.jpg|thumb|From left to right: Tuppittia Qitsualik (interpreter), me (Mx. Science), Prof. Whitelaw (Project PI), Brent Pukkiniaq (HTA-board member).]]

Although, I had not entirely anticipated taking the the role of a meeting moderator, it turned out to be expected from me - and I gladly stepped up, to do so.

<div class="next_choice">You have uncovered a landmark insights on the gaps and openings. Check it out to understand how gaps, provide a useful opening towards the materialization of ethical space.

'''"Keep going"''' if you want to learn about the scientific presentations instead.</div>

<span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Gaps, Openings and Possibilities" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Gaps, Openings and Possibilities|Landmark: Gaps, Openings and Possibilities]]</span>

=Scientific Presentations=

The first day of the Gathering was designed around presenting back to the community. Most of those were presentations were done remotely through the a starlink connection and zoom-presentation link.

Based on research I had conducted for a Research Assistance-ship on research communication, earlier in my PhD, I had asked presenters to use the "message box" (COMPASS, year) as a template to format their presentations with.

Preparing such a message box, can form a useful tool to "distil your knowledge in a way that resonates with your audience<ref>Green, S. J., Grorud-Colvert, K., & Mannix, H. (2018). Uniting science and stories: perspectives on the value of storytelling for communicating science. Facets, 3(1), 164-173.</ref>."

[[File:Message box.jpg|thumb]]

<div class="next_choice">Sadly, very few of the presenters had seemed to make use of this message box, nor did they time their presentations in accordance with the requested window of 7 minutes presentation, 7 minutes discussion. In combination with the technical challenges of keeping a remote connection stable up north, this day ended up taking much longer than anticipated- and did not provide any space for dialogue.</div>

<small><references /></small>

=Exhibition Danny Aaluk=

During the gathering I had installed an ongoing exhibition of Danny's work.

This exhibition was physically accessible, within the Gathering space, as well as digitally accessible through the Kumospace.

<HTML>
<div style="position: relative; width: 100%; height: 0; padding-top: 56.2500%;
padding-bottom: 0; box-shadow: 0 2px 8px 0 rgba(63,69,81,0.16); margin-top: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; overflow: hidden;
border-radius: 8px; will-change: transform;">
<iframe loading="lazy" style="position: absolute; width: 100%; height: 100%; top: 0; left: 0; border: none; padding: 0;margin: 0;"
src="https://www.canva.com/design/DAFRIhnStno/macvY5PLOhRmMq0snF17eQ/view?embed" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" allow="fullscreen">
</iframe>
</div>
<a href="https://www.canva.com/design/DAFRIhnStno/macvY5PLOhRmMq0snF17eQ/view?utm_content=DAFRIhnStno&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=embeds&utm_source=link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Art Gallery Danny Aaluk</a> by gingertheworld
</html>

=Day 2: Building Igloo=

The second day of the workshop took a completely different shape.

Eight community members (three elders, four youth and the interpretor) joined with the eight participants from the south to build an igloo together.

Originally, we had planned to build a qaggiq, a special kind of structure that is specifically meant to come together and renew relationships. However, due to a lack of the right kind of snow and limited time, we pivoted to the building of an igloo instead.

[[File:DSC01326.jpg|thumb|Observing elders instructing the youth]]
[[File:DSC01358.jpg|thumb|Prof. Whitelaw receiving instructions on how to cut a block]]
[[File:DSC01425.jpg|thumb|Lifting blocks together]]
[[File:DSC01390.jpg|thumb|David Siksik carving space for the next block]]
[[File:Editted picture igloo.jpg|thumb|Group picture with finished igloo]]
[[File:Thumbnail IMG 4300001002003.jpg|thumb|Finished igloo]]

This day was designed to facilitate intra-generational and cultural knowledge exchange through partaking in a shared practice. The terms of engagement on this second day, were as such very different than the first day.

Community elders took the lead. And for the first hour, southern participants just observed.

As David and Jimmy discussed how to make the cuts and the outlines of where the igloo was to be built, they instructed the four young men that had joined to assist and learn, on what to do.

After a while, as agreed, two of the young men started to teach the southern researchers how to cut a block.

David had scouted a practice patch, right next to the igloo where we could learn how to cut blocks.

It became clear during the evaluation of the day that the elders had expected our blocks to all be "rejects". Our cuts were nevertheless clean enough for the blocks to be all used in the igloo. Being able to build this structure together was considered by some southern participants as the highlight of the trip.

"(...) that's one of the, the most amazing days I've ever had." (Prof. Whitelaw, 2022 post workshop interview)

=Evaluation=

After finishing the structure and taking a group picture, we retreated into a warm tent for Bannock and "klik". In the tent, we did one evaluative circle in which everyone got an opportunity to share how they had experienced the building of the igloo. As we went around the circle, everyone shared.

[[File:Jpeg-imag.jpg|thumb]]

''"I am so appreciative. I have the biggest thankfulness in my heart now because, especially big hats off to the people that organized these events. And then we had really good leadership in all their activities, especially in the building where you could see people are cooperating with each other.''
''They're building relationships. And with our guests and with our community, we're making, we're, uh, making, uh, healing relationships with each other in that we are become, to know each other as humans and that we're treating each other with respect. And to share a meal and a good hot tea that, that kind of relationship building exercises. It was exactly what I needed and I really appreciates you have organized this'' (Elder Mary Aqilriaq)"

''"I'm very proud to be here today, and I didn't expect the meal, the good meal, the tea, and all the laughter. This is the first time building an igloo. The knowledge that was passed down, I want to thank these elders too for being here, having to be here, having to lead'' (Percy Ikkuallaq)."

''"(...) there's sort of this organic unfolding of an understanding between people. Um, and that's just beautiful to, uh, to, to observe and experience. And then we all come and kind of a little tentative first. And then, you know, we, we observe and we watch. And then confidence increases, and then we try to emulate. So it's sort of this connection, uh, between people is what I enjoyed most today. And I'm grateful for that'' (PI van Coeverden de Groot)".

<div class="next_choice">The igloo became a '''"Landmark"''' for the remainder of the workshop. Why don't you go out there and see who you meet?</div>

<span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Being with-" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Being-with|Landmark: Being-with]]</span>

=Day 3: Living With Polar Bears=

Day three of the gathering consisted of a conversation on the future of polar bear monitoring and management. Bringing together insight from science, the management landscape and community expertise through a panel that represented a diversity in age and expertise.Its goal was to discuss how the tools that were developed through the BearWatch project could be implemented in future projects.

The idea of setting up a panel had also come from the pre-workshop. One of the questions I had asked during the pre-workshop was how we could ensure that there would be enough space for different voices to be heard, and in which ways we could make people feel comfortable enough to share. The suggestion was raised to erect a panel consisting of the following people: 2 senior researchers, 2 HTO people, 2 youth, 1 40/50 yr old, 2 elders.

Peter van Coeverden de Groot moderated this third day. As Aida Porter, was unwell on this last day, I took over her role as a note-taker by taking graphic notes (on-the-spot visualization).

[[File:Graphic notes.png|thumb]]

=Closing=

The morning after the third day we met with a smaller group to de-brief and evaluate the gathering.

Present at this evaluation were two elders that had joined the pre-workshop, the Gjoa Haven HTA vice-chair and our interpretor, as well as the BearWatch PI's, the former government biologist of NWT, and two BearWatch researchers including me. The funders had to leave earlier that morning.

This evaluation was lead my me, and the questions were based on key concepts that had emerged from my auto-ethnographic notes, literature and, most importantly, on the terms of engagement that were drafted during the pre-gathering and that were agreed upon across the workshop organizers prior to our gathering.

<div class="next_choice">Not all insights are immediate, or measurable. Sometimes, possibilities to think with- emerge from in-between the lines, rather than within them - and they may take time to unveil themselves. My efforts to employ creative methods and aesthetic action, as a way to create new conditions and possibilities to encounter each other during the final gatherings, had seemingly succeeded in some ways, while meeting resistance in others. after recovering While recovering from an intense final season of the BearWatch project, slowly but surely, a figure, with a renewed meaning materializes: The Shipwreck.

Check out the '''"Landmark"''' to explore this wrecksite more closely,

Otherwise,

'''"Keep going"''' and catch a charter plane to Coral Harbour, where a second workshop is planned.</div>

<span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="The Wreck-site" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[The Wreck-site|Landmark: The Wreck-site]]</span>

=Design Consultation Pre-Workshop & Workshop Coral Harbour=

This particular cut continues on a different track. The final workshop in Coral Harbour. The research in this community has emerged along completely different timelines and relational dynamics.

<div class="next_choice">You have run into a pressure ridge. Detour to Cut 3 to read more about the preparation phase of the final workshop in Coral Harbour. Beware, however, that if you detour here, it will be hard to find your way back to this cut. Maybe it is better to trail along the pressure ridge and find your way through.</div>

[[File:Landing coral harbour.jpg|thumb]]

<span class="detour link" data-page-title="Collage and Zine-Making" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Collage and Zine-Making#Fall 2022 Coral Harbour|Cut 3: Fall 2022, prepping in Coral Harbour]]</span>

<span class="redirective ice pressure ridge link" data-page-title="Remote Planning" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Ice-pressure_ridge">[[Remote Planning|Ice pressure ridge: Remote Planning]]</span>

Flat Tire

2025-03-03T13:49:04Z

77.174.243.90:

[[File:Ice pressure ridge background a.png|thumb]]

Looking out of the window from the cabin, it became clear at one point that the truck's headlights were not coming any closer. Percy seemed to be stuck.
As Gibson and Dustin prepare to go out into the dark and help Percy, I joined them.

It had snowed quite heavily during the last day of the pre-workshop. Indeed, arriving at the truck, Percy had not only gotten stuck in a snowbank, he also had a deflated tire, and his phone had run out of battery. The four of us eventually managed to dig the truck out and drive it to the cabin. The tire seems to be deflating quickly however. And my phone had died in the cold as well.

'''What would you do?'''

<div class="next_choice">Thinking fast, you see only one solution.

You estimate that the tire might have one more trip in it, but not more. So, instead of taking everyone home one by one, and then coming back for all the equipment, you decide to leave the equipment in the cabin and the load the truck with all the participants instead. Driving back in the dark through the snowbanks, with a soft tire and being fully loaded with people, you feel the pressure to get everyone back to the community safely, and not get stuck again.

Although it may a tense moment for you- your passengers seem to be enjoying themselves. As you drift through the snow, break through snowbanks and spray snow everywhere, all your passengers cheer and laugh. Finally, you reach the road. From here on, it is more straight-forward and you reach uptown, where you drop of your first two elders.

Getting out of the truck you notice that the tire has completely blown up, and that you have lost the rubber on the way. You drove here on the rim.

This, you think, explains the burning smell once you hit the road.

You arrange a ride for the third elder Mary, and walk downtown with all the youth. Everybody is elated about the adventure you just had. You are just happy you got everyone home safe. </div>

<span class="return to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="return">[[Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop|Return to Cut 2: Prepare the final workshops]]</span>

Flat Tire

2025-03-03T13:39:59Z

77.174.243.90:

[[File:Ice pressure ridge background a.png|thumb]]

Looking out of the window from the cabin, it became clear at one point that the truck's headlights were not coming any closer. Percy seemed to be stuck.
As Gibson and Dustin prepare to go out into the dark and help Percy, I joined them.

It had snowed quite heavily during the last day of the pre-workshop. Indeed, arriving at the truck, Percy had not only gotten stuck in a snowbank, he also had a deflated tire, and his phone had run out of battery. The four of us eventually managed to dig the truck out and drive it to the cabin. The tire seems to be deflating quickly however. And my phone had died in the cold as well.

'''What would you do?'''

<div class="next_choice">Thinking fast, you see only one solution.

You estimate that the tire might have one more trip in it, but not more. So, instead of taking everyone home one by one, and then coming back for all the equipment, you decide to leave the equipment in the cabin and the load the truck with all the participants instead. Driving back in the dark through the snowbanks, with a soft tire and being fully loaded with people, you feel the pressure to get everyone back to the community safely, and not get stuck again.

Although it may a tense moment for you- your passengers seem to be enjoying themselves. As you slip through the snow, break through snowbanks and spray snow everywhere, all your passengers cheer and laugh. Finally, you reach the road. From here on, it is more straight-forward and you reach uptown, where you drop of your first two elders.

Getting out of the truck you notice that the tire has completely blown up, and that you have lost the rubber on the way. You drove here on the rim.

This, you think, explains the burning smell once you hit the road.

You arrange a ride for the third elder Mary, and walk downtown with all the youth. Everybody is elated about the adventure you just had. You are just happy you got everyone home safe. </div>

<span class="return to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="return">[[Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop|Return to Cut 2: Prepare the final workshops]]</span>

Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops

2025-03-03T13:37:06Z

77.174.243.90: /* Design Consultation Pre-workshop & Workshop GH */

This is one of three case studies conducted as part of my research that seeks to explore how ethical knowledge conciliation may come to matter within community-based polar bear research. This particular case study cuts across the preparation and the activities that were part of the final BearWatch workshops in both Gjoa Haven and Coral Harbour.

<div class="next_choice">'''"Keep going"''' to trace the aesthetic actions that were part of Gjoa Haven gathering. You can cut across the Coral Harbour workshop after. </div>

=Design Consultation Pre-workshop & Workshop GH=

One of the most helpful interviews I conducted in Gjoa Haven during the Spring of 2022, was with Elder Jimmy Qirqut.

I asked him how to organize the final workshops of the BearWatch project in a way that it could co-constitute an Ethical Space of Engagement.

Jimmy made it clear that decisions towards such design would need to be derived by consensus.

He advised me, if I wanted to incorporate the input of multiple voices and input from the community - also those from outside of the Gjoa Haven HTA board- to organize a (multiple day) meeting with several elders and youth of different genders.

He instructed me to see if I could rent the elder-youth cabin from the hamlet office, and organize transport to bring people up to the cabin.

He also advised me to advertise this meeting over the radio, to see if people would be interested.

Finally, I should make sure the cabin would be warm enough and comfortable for everyone to spend time in.

<div class="next_choice">'''" Keep going"''' <div/>

=2 day Preworkshop GH=

As the agenda for the three-day final workshop had already been decided on by the BearWatch project PI's and the Gjoa Haven HTA, the pre-workshop was to draft workshop guidelines and suggested terms of engagement to inform processes like appropriate formatting of sessions, and the optimal conditions for community members to participate.

<div class="next_choice">
You are '''"invited"''' to tag along this pre-workshop. Accept the invitation to honour the important role that preparation plays in any kind of research in the north,

Alternatively,

'''"Keep Going"''' to skip this, and move straight ahead to the terms of engagements that we drafted together over the course of two days.</div>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Finding the Youth-Elder Cabin" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Finding the Youth-Elder Cabin|Invitation: set-up the pre-workshop]]</span>

=Terms of Engagement=

After two-days in the elder-youth cabin, we had drafted a comprehensive set of guidelines and terms of engagement for the final workshops.

These guidelines were divided in general "good practices", and guidelines particular to the agenda that was set for the final workshop.

[[File:Notes preworkshop.jpg|thumb]]

These are the general guidelines:

'''''General good practice:'''''

''1. Be human first, before any type of position''

''2. Leave your pride on the plane''

''3. Include the community before, during and after your research.''

'''''Hold space:'''''

''- Presenting/sharing your knowledge. (This is your gift to the community)''

''- Make time/space for people to ask you questions (so they can learn from you)''

''- Don’t speak over someone that is already speaking.''

'''''General Guidelines:'''''

''-Include the middle-age group; The working people, 40/50 year olds, not just youth and elders.''

''-At the end of each session each of the speakers should be individually named and explicitly thanked.''

''-Prepare well.''

''-Specifically during events there should be space for elders and youth to have dialogue, discussions.''

''-We should look out for ALL youth! Including the youth that are looked down on a bit.''

''-It is very important to have and keep set times.''

<div class="next_choice">The pre-workshop was a success. These guidelines will help shape the final workshop in Gjoa haven. Keep an eye out for them, as I will return to them as we move forward.

You start packing up. However

You have run into an '''"Ice-Pressure Ridge"'''. Percy got stuck in a snowbank, on his way with the truck to pick people up and give them rides home.

</div>

<span class="redirective ice pressure ridge link" data-page-title="Flat Tire" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Ice-pressure_ridge">[[Flat Tire|Lookout for Percy]]</span>

Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops

2025-03-03T13:34:12Z

77.174.243.90: /* Design Consultation Pre-workshop & Workshop GH */

This is one of three case studies conducted as part of my research that seeks to explore how ethical knowledge conciliation may come to matter within community-based polar bear research. This particular case study cuts across the preparation and the activities that were part of the final BearWatch workshops in both Gjoa Haven and Coral Harbour.

<div class="next_choice">'''"Keep going"''' to trace the aesthetic actions that were part of Gjoa Haven gathering. You can cut across the Coral Harbour workshop after. </div>

=Design Consultation Pre-workshop & Workshop GH=

One of the most helpful interviews I conducted in Gjoa Haven during the Spring of 2022, was with Elder Jimmy Qirqut.

I asked him how to organize the final workshops of the BearWatch project in a way that it could co-constitute an Ethical Space of Engagement.

Jimmy made it clear that such decisions would need to be derived by consensus. He advised me, if I wanted to incorporate the input of multiple voices and input from the community - also outside of the Gjoa Haven HTA board, to organize a (multiple day) meeting with several elders and youth of different genders.

He instructed me to see if I could rent the elder-youth cabin from the hamlet office, and organize transport to bring people up to the cabin.

He also advised me to advertise this meeting over the radio, to see if people would be interested.

Finally, I should make sure the cabin would be warm enough and comfortable for everyone to spend time in.

<div class="next_choice">'''" Keep going"''' to explore some of the aesthetic actions that comprised this two-day pre-workshop,

=2 day Preworkshop GH=

As the agenda for the three-day final workshop had already been decided on by the BearWatch project PI's and the Gjoa Haven HTA, the pre-workshop was to draft workshop guidelines and suggested terms of engagement to inform processes like appropriate formatting of sessions, and the optimal conditions for community members to participate.

<div class="next_choice">
You are '''"invited"''' to tag along this pre-workshop. Accept the invitation to honour the important role that preparation plays in any kind of research in the north,

Alternatively,

'''"Keep Going"''' to skip this, and move straight ahead to the terms of engagements that we drafted together over the course of two days.</div>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Finding the Youth-Elder Cabin" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Finding the Youth-Elder Cabin|Invitation: set-up the pre-workshop]]</span>

=Terms of Engagement=

After two-days in the elder-youth cabin, we had drafted a comprehensive set of guidelines and terms of engagement for the final workshops.

These guidelines were divided in general "good practices", and guidelines particular to the agenda that was set for the final workshop.

[[File:Notes preworkshop.jpg|thumb]]

These are the general guidelines:

'''''General good practice:'''''

''1. Be human first, before any type of position''

''2. Leave your pride on the plane''

''3. Include the community before, during and after your research.''

'''''Hold space:'''''

''- Presenting/sharing your knowledge. (This is your gift to the community)''

''- Make time/space for people to ask you questions (so they can learn from you)''

''- Don’t speak over someone that is already speaking.''

'''''General Guidelines:'''''

''-Include the middle-age group; The working people, 40/50 year olds, not just youth and elders.''

''-At the end of each session each of the speakers should be individually named and explicitly thanked.''

''-Prepare well.''

''-Specifically during events there should be space for elders and youth to have dialogue, discussions.''

''-We should look out for ALL youth! Including the youth that are looked down on a bit.''

''-It is very important to have and keep set times.''

<div class="next_choice">The pre-workshop was a success. These guidelines will help shape the final workshop in Gjoa haven. Keep an eye out for them, as I will return to them as we move forward.

You start packing up. However

You have run into an '''"Ice-Pressure Ridge"'''. Percy got stuck in a snowbank, on his way with the truck to pick people up and give them rides home.

</div>

<span class="redirective ice pressure ridge link" data-page-title="Flat Tire" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Ice-pressure_ridge">[[Flat Tire|Lookout for Percy]]</span>

Fall 2022 Gjoa Haven

2025-03-02T21:03:04Z

77.174.243.90: /* Beyond the Cut */

After losing a week in travel delays, there is a lot of preparation left to do for the final workshop in Gjoa Haven- starting with the organization of a "special meeting" with the HTA to finetune the agenda, invitees, and logistical set-up of the meeting.

Luckily, it is much easier to set up such meetings in Gjoa Haven, than it was in Coral Harbour. Due to the much wider relational network here, it was more clear how to engage in collective dialogue and logistically produce a gathering that meets community desires.

<div class="next_choice">'''"Keep Going"''' to find out what the final workshop agendas in both communities, how we evaluated them and what was reported back to funders.

or,

You may "Detour" to cut 2 along our workshop preparations step-by-step. You will not return here. </div>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops#Design Consultation Pre-Workshop & Workshop Gjoa Haven|Detour to cut 2: (Pre-)Gatherings]]</span>

=Winter 2022 Final Workshops=

In Gjoa Haven we organized a three-day gathering, that was preceded by a two-day pre-workshop that fed into the design of the gathering.

In Coral Harbour we ended u with a two day final gathering, spread between school activities and the hamlet conference room.

[[File:Agenda GH gathering.png|thumb]]

[[File:Print poster CH.png|thumb]]

<div class="next_choice">'''"Keep Going"''' to find out how we evaluated both workshops and what was reported back to funders.

or,

'''"Detour"''' to Cut 2 for a day-to-day journey through each workshop.

</div>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop#3 day Workshop Gjoa Haven|Detour to Cut 2:Final Gatherings]]</span>

=Evaluations=

Both workshops were evaluated in different ways.

In Gjoa Haven, we had conducted a pre-workshop to agree upon terms of engagement and held multiple evaluations to understand participant experiences.

In Coral Harbour, the funders were not present for the workshop, nor was our local co-PI.

The conditions had not been in place for us to organize a pre-workshop with community members during the earlier visit in the community.

So, instead we opted to hold a smaller pre-workshop, and post-workshop meeting with the two BearWatch PI's, the former government biologist of NWT and I.

=Lessons Learnt=

The Coral Harbour pre-workshop meeting was prefaced on "lessons-learnt" from the Gjoa Haven Gathering.

During this pre-workshop meeting, and with the input of the interpretor, we agreed upon certain processes to be applied in the Coral Harbour gathering.

Subsequently we evaluated these processes in a post-workshop evaluation with the same group of people.

=Emergent insights=

In February 2023, the next year, I conducted eight follow-up individual interviews with the Southern researchers, government biologist, funders of the BearWatch project and the interpretor from Gjoa Haven to discuss their experiences of the workshops, two months after it had taken place.

<div class="next_choice">Not all insights are immediate, or measurable.

Sometimes, possibilities to think with- emerge from in-between the lines, rather than within them - and they may take time to unveil themselves.

My efforts to employ creative methods and aesthetic action, as a way to create new conditions and possibilities to encounter each other during the final gatherings, had seemingly succeeded in some ways, while meeting resistance in others.

While recovering from an intense final season of the BearWatch project, slowly but surely, a figure, with a renewed meaning materializes: The Shipwreck.

Explore how this '''"landmark"''' insight became a defining feature of this knowledge-land-scape.

Or,

'''"Keep Going"''' to reach the end of this cut.</div>

<span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="The Wreck-site" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[The Wreck-site|Landmark: The Wreck-site]]</span>

=Another Point of Beginning=

You have reached "Another Point of Beginning".

This is where we take account for our journey so far.

You can trace the path you have taken through this Knowledge-Land-Scape by clicking the "trace" bar in the upper left corner of your screen. It will allow you to account for some of the insights that your journey has given you.

The map below shows you the full extent of wayfaring possibilities of the scape.

<HTML><iframe width="768" height="432" src="https://miro.com/app/live-embed/uXjVLuaaSIw=/?moveToViewport=-6303,-1839,4422,3256&embedId=190872630107" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allow="fullscreen; clipboard-read; clipboard-write" allowfullscreen></iframe></html>

<div class="next_choice"> Cut 3 has guided you along the journey of the community-based dynamics of the BearWatch project.

You have been able to thread your own way alongside me and many of the other agential forces that shaped this project.

In the context of community-based research our movements through the world matter. Are we simply transporting ourselves from one point to another, leaving inanimate traces towards predetermined destinations, or are we finding our way along, in lively response to our own unfolding narratives and that of others around us?

'''"Keep Going"''' to explore how the different research output creations have continued their material agencies beyond this cut.</div>

=Beyond the Cut=

[[File:Beyond the cut.png|thumb]]

Over the course of 7 years, the BearWatch project has- among others:

a) optimized SNP and genetic sex profiling of polar bear feces - allowing non-invasive identification and sexing of individual polar bears, b) optimized meta-barcoding assays that allow the identification of vertebrate prey and plant diet identification from polar bear faeces - allowing non-invasive monitoring of diet switching of genetically tagged individual bears, c) determined the relationship between heavy metal contaminants in a polar bears faeces and it’s muscle, liver and fat profile- allowing for noninvasive monitoring of spatial and temporal contaminant loads across the Arctic and , d) optimized the species level detection of micro plastic in polar bear faeces - allowing for the real time monitoring of these contaminants in the arctic ecosystem.

Such non-invasive methods will be most valuable, however, when employed as part of sustainable collaborative efforts between biologists and Inuit communities.

The insights coming from my wayfaring method and prospective aesthetic action within the BearWatch project, have materialized in insights and spaces that may allow for continued work in Gjoa Haven on renewed terms of engagement.

Instead of participation and integration of Inuit Knowledge, follow-up research between BearWatch PI's and Gjoa Haven has now been formulated in terms of co-leadership and is preceded by a "setting of the table", which will include the negotiation of knowledge weaving methods and decision-making protocols under guidance of the ICC EEE protocols, and in according with the principles of Ethical Engagement.

<span class="detour to cut 2 link" data-page-title="Aesthetic_Action" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Aesthetic Action|Detour:Cut 2 Aesthetic Action Point of Beginning]]</span>

<span class="detour to cut 1 link" data-page-title="Voices of Thunder" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Voices of Thunder|Detour:Cut 1 Voices of Thunder]]</span>

<span class="detour to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring the BearWatch Project" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Wayfaring the BearWatch Project|Cut 3 Wayfaring the BearWatch Project]]</span>

Covid-19

2025-02-28T12:18:33Z

77.174.243.90: /* Becoming Nomadic */

[[File:Ice pressure ridge background a.png|thumb]]

The den survey and TEK collection activities in Coral Harbour were planned for March and April, but were postponed due to COVID-19. The Hamlet of Coral Harbour requested outside visitors stay away the day before most of the BearWatch team was set to arrive in the Hamlet, and the BearWatch PI’s respected their wishes.

I had, however, travelled North a day early, and arrived in the community on exactly the day that the Covid-19 epidemic was declared pandemic. Non-resident travel bans came into effect in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories immediately, while physical distancing requirements within communities were put in place a little later.

=Spring Coral Harbour=

You have run into an “ice-pressure ridge”. Ice pressure ridges" are re-directive agential forces that perform the de/markations and im/possibilities of how you can move through the knowledge-land-scape. The ice pressure ridge remind us that agency is not a property that is possessed by individual readers, researchers and authors. In this case, it is the change of seasons that forms such an ice-pressure ridge. Despite immediately rescheduling my flight back to the South after I had landed in Coral Harbour, the wind took a turn and blizzards delayed my departure from Coral Harbour by multiple days.

Indeed, I had travelled up to Coral Harbour during early spring and the weather was changeable. Although the seasons provide for transformative possibilities in the North, they also bring with them uncertainties. In this case, uncertainties related to stranding in a remote-region, away from home, during the unfolding of a global response to a pandemic spread of a respiratory virus.

<div class="next_choice">Follow the "Ice-Pressure Ridge to understand the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on both the Bearwatch project and my own PhD trajectory.
</div>

=Covid 19 Personal Whereabouts=
[[File:Ice pressure ridge background a.png|thumb]]

The ice pressure ridge remind us that agency is not a property that is possessed by individual readers, researchers and authors. Our ways of becoming knowledgeable always correspond intra-dependently with conditions that are set by many other agential forces, both human and non-human.

When the spread of Covid-19 was declared a pandemic it shaped an ice-pressure ridge that was so immense, that it not so much required me to redirect- as it asked me to re-locate.

=Making a New Home=

In 2019, at the start of my doctoral studies I had relocated from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to Ka'tarohkwi (the area known as Kingston, Ontario) on the traditional homelands of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabek and Huron-Wendat nations.

I arrived ready to commit- aspiring to make Kingston my new home.

Which it became, in multiple ways, over time.

The building of these relationships became somewhat more complicated from 2020 onwards, however . The COVID-19 pandemic ended up uprooting me from all my home-bases, both Dutch and Canadian.

=The Netherlands in Isolation=

After the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, I initially chose to take shelter in my country of origin; the Netherlands. I stayed there for three months.

I moved in with my sister and her family to save money. I slept on an airbed and shared a room with my 2-year old nephew. It was nice to be close to family. I preferred it above self-isolating in an apartment.

[[File:Selfportrait during lockdown.jpg|thumb|Selfportrait during lockdown]]

Nevertheless, my commitment to be present, and make a new home in Canada- combined with the financial stresses of maintaining two home-bases- eventually drew me back to Ontario at the first seemingly reasonable opportunity.

=Kingston in Isolation=

The reality of returning to Canada as an international student, during the Covid-19 pandemic, was- while I acknowledge my privilege of being able to stay safe and healthy- rough for me.

Once back in Ontario, I was stuck in my tiny in Kingston apartment by myself, without a university campus to go to, or access to the regions in which I would have to conduct my fieldwork.

I wrote a lot.

=Falling In-Between=

By June 2021 I had to return to the Netherlands for family matters. During this latter trip, I was offered an affordable apartment in Amsterdam- and decided, considering the ongoing uncertainty of Covid-19 pandemic to accept it.

One month later, In July 2021, I received the news that we could travel to Nunavut again for fieldwork, and Canada slowly started to open up again.

=Becoming Nomadic=

From July 2021 onward, I continued my PhD in a state of flux. I would come to Canada for fieldwork, and spent an average of six weeks up North each trip. I would then stay, on average, another six weeks in Ontario. Usually I would spend up to twelve weeks back home in the Netherlands, before I would return again to Canada.

This rotation was possible because of being awarded a Canada Graduate Vanier Scholarship, and my decision in September 2020 to purchase a campervan: "Butter". As a result of these two events, my time in Canada took a completely different shape in comparison to what it had been before.

<div class="next_choice">
'''"Return to Cut 1"''' to learn more about Gjoa Haven's "Voices of Thunder" came to shape after Covid-19 restriction were lifted.

Or,

'''"Return to Cut 3"''', to continue tracing other parts of the BearWatch project that I got involved with.

Alternatively,

Accept an '''"Invitation"''' to tag along and take a ride in "Butter". This ride will allow you to learn about the possibilities that "becoming nomadic" brought to my research, before returning to Cut 1.</div>

<span class="return to-cut-1 link" data-page-title="Multiple Voices" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="return">[[Multiple Voices|Return to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder]]</span>

<span class="return to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project#Spring Coral Harbour 2020|Return to Cut 3: Spring Coral Harbour 2020]]</span>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Conference_Calls_from_the_Road" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Conference_Calls_from_the_Road|Invitation: Thinking from the Road During Covid-19]]</span>

Welcome to Knowledge-land-scape

2025-02-28T12:12:20Z

77.174.243.90: /* Invitations to trail-off: */

<strong>MediaWiki has been installed.</strong>

Welcome to knowledge-land-scape wiki, you can edit, create, and write the content.

= Getting started =

You can go to start by playing in the [[Playground]]

I'm adding now the link for the [[Experiment]] page; where I document my process

=='''Welcome page'''==

This is the easy link to [[Exploring Polar Bear Research as Ethical Space, Practice and Process of Engagement: Knowledge-land-scape]] where I wrote the text for the title/main page

This is the easy link to [[Terms of Engagement]] for on the title page

This is the easy link to [[Colofon]] for on the title page

This is the easy link to [[Design Considerations]] for on the title page

This is the easy link to [[Dead-end]] page

Instructions: Ways to Navigate this Space consists of two pages

Page 1:[[Instructions: Ways to Navigate this Space]] runs to "Redirectives: Ice Pressure Ridges"[5] (Only this page is linked to from the homepage)

Page 2:[[Encounters Along the Way]] runs to "Another Point of Beginning"[2]

Invitation: [[Learning About Invitations]]

Ice Pressure Ridge: [[Learning About Ice Pressure Ridges]]

Vista: [[Learning About Vistas]]

Landmark: [[Learning About Landmarks]]

Great White Beast: [[Learning About Staying With the Trouble]]

Wrecksite: [[Learning About Wrecksites]]

=='''Cut 1 Voices of Thunder thread:'''==

consists of 2 pages.

This is the easy link to page 1 [[Voices of Thunder]] runs to "Ongoing Conversations"[4] '''checked'''

This is the easy link to page 2 [[Multiple Voices]] runs to "Beyond the Cut" [12] '''checked'''

===Invitations to trail-off:===

This is the easy link to the [[Conference Calls from the Road]] page - This is the connected pressure ridge [[Covid 19 Personal Whereabouts]] & [[Covid-19]] '''checked'''

This is the easy link to the [[Vulnerability]] page '''checked'''

===De-tours and returns:===

This is the easy link to the [[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning#5. Workshops Summer 2019]] page (part of cut 3), and its connected [[TEK workshops]] detour (separate from cut 3).

This is the easy link to the [[Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary]] page, part of the "Aesthetic Action" cut 2

This is the easy link to the [[Synopsis Voices of Thunder]] page

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour link" data-page-title="Voices of Thunder" data-section-id="16" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Voices of Thunder#Another Point of Beginning]]</span>

This is the easy link to the [[Another point of beginning Wayfaring method]] header cut 2

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning" data-section-id="8" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning#Coral Harbour First Trip 2020|Coral Harbour First Trip 2020]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 1 link" data-page-title="Multiple Voices" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="return">[[Multiple Voices|Cut 1: Multiple Voices]]</span>

This is the easy link to the [[Knowledge co-production in BearWatch]] page '''checked'''

===These are the Shipwrecks:===

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up wrecksite link" data-page-title="Nunavut Polar Bear Monitoring and Management" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="wrecksite">[[Nunavut Polar Bear Monitoring and Management|Wrecksite: Nunavut Polar Bear Monitoring and Management]]</span> page '''checked'''

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up wrecksite link" data-page-title="Science based conservation" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="wrecksite">[[Science based conservation|Wrecksite: Science-based conservation]]</span> page '''checked'''

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up wrecksite link" data-page-title="Science based Conservation" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="wrecksite">[[Science based Conservation|Wrecksite: Science-based Conservation]]</span> page '''checked'''

===These are the Great White Beasts:===

This is the easy link to the [[Politics of Recognition]] page '''checked'''
This is the easy link to the [[Speaking truth to power]] page '''not used'''

This is the easy link to the <span class="pop-up stay-with-the-trouble link" data-page-title="Moves Towards Innocence" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Moves Towards Innocence">[[Moves Towards Innocence|Stay with the trouble: Avoid making moves towards innocence]]</span> '''checked'''

===These are the Emergent Landmarks:===

This is the easy link to the [[Listening & Witnessing Landmark]] '''checked'''

This is the easy link to the [[Multiple Sites of Enunciation]] '''checked'''

===These are the Emergent Vistas:===

This is the easy link to the [[The Wayfarer Vista]] '''not used'''

This is the easy link to the [[The Becoming Other Vista]] page '''checked'''

This is the easy link to the [[Ethical Space of Engagement]] vista '''checked'''

=='''Cut 2 Aesthetic action thread:'''==

This is the easy link to the Point of beginning: [[Aesthetic Action]] page '''checked'''

This is the easy link to the [[Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary]] page 3a

This is the easy link to the [[Community co-creation]] trace 3a.1

This is the easy link to the [[Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops]] page 3b

This is the easy link to the [[Preparation Gjoa Haven Workshop]] page 3b.1

This is the easy link to the [[workshop Coral Harbour|Design consultation pre-workshop and workshop
Coral Harbour]] trace 3b.2

This is the easy link to the [[Point of Beginning Mx. Science]] page 3c '''checked'''

This is the easy link to the [[Nukatugaq / Mx. Science]] page

===Invitations to trail-off and ice pressure ridges:===

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Drinking Coffee" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Drinking Coffee|Invitation: Drinking Coffee]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Preparing Cabin" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Preparing Cabin|Invitation: Preparing Cabin]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Workshop Invitations" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Workshop Invitations|Invitation: Preparing Workshop invitations]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective ice pressure ridge link" data-page-title="Blue House" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Ice-pressure_ridge">[[Blue House|Ice pressure ridge: The Blue House]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective ice pressure ridge link" data-page-title="Truck Flat Tire" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Ice-pressure_ridge">[[Truck Flat Tire|Ice pressure ridge: Truck Flat Tire]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective ice pressure ridge link" data-page-title="Remote Planning" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Ice-pressure_ridge">[[Remote Planning|Ice pressure ridge: Remote Planning]]</span>

===De-tours and returns:===

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 1 link" data-page-title="Voices of Thunder" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Voices of Thunder|Detour to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 2 link" data-page-title="Community co-creation" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Community co-creation|Detour: Community co-creation]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 1 link" data-page-title="Voices of Thunder" data-section-id="8" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Voices of Thunder#Voices of Thunder Animated Graphic Documentary|Detour: Voices of Thunder Animated Graphic Documentary]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 2 link" data-page-title="Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops|Continue to Point of Beginning (Pre-)Workshop]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 2 link" data-page-title="Workshop Coral Harbour" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Workshop Coral Harbour#Design consultation pre-workshop & workshop Coral Harbour|Detour to Workshop Coral Harbour]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring the BW project" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Wayfaring the BW project#BW Final Reporting|Detour: BW Final Reporting]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to-cut-1 link" data-page-title="Voices of Thunder" data-section-id="16">[[Voices of Thunder#Another Point of Beginning|Detour to Cut 1: Another Point of Beginning]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Drinking Coffee" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Drinking Coffee|Invitation: Drinking Coffee]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Preparing Cabin" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Preparing Cabin|Invitation: Preparing Cabin]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Workshop Invitations" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Workshop Invitations|Invitation: Preparing Workshop invitations]]</span>

===Emergent Landmarks===

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Entering_into_relationship" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Entering into relationship|Landmark: "Entering into relationship"]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Song, Dance and Oral Storytelling" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Song, Dance and Oral Storytelling|Landmark: Song, Dance and Oral Storytelling"]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Making Space" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Making Space|Landmark: "Making Space"]]</span>

This is the easy link to the<span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Becoming Other" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Becoming Other|Landmark: Becoming Other]]</span> '''checked'''

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Preparation" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Preparation|Landmark: Preparation]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="The Great White Beast" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[The Great White Beast|Landmark: "The Great white Beast"]]</span> '''checked'''

===Great White Beasts===

This is the easy link to the <span class="pop-up stay-with-the-trouble link" data-page-title="Politics of In-action and Refusal" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Stay_with_the_trouble">[[Politics of In-action and Refusal|Stay with the trouble: Politics of In-action and Refusal]]</span>

===Vistas===

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up vista link" data-page-title="The ESE (Space)" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Vista">[[The ESE (Space)|Vista: The ESE (Space)]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="pop-up vista link" data-page-title="Becoming Other Vista" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Vista">[[Becoming Other Vista|Vista: Becoming Other]]</span>

=='''Cut 3: Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning'''==

This is the easy link to the [[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning]] page (This page is interrupted by Covid-19)

This is the easy link to the [[Wayfaring the BW project]] page (this page is interrupted by Seasonal Activities)

This is the easy link to the [[Collage and Zine-Making]] page (this page is interrupted by Arctic Travel)

This is the easy link to the [[Fall 2022 Gjoa Haven]]

===Vistas:===

This is the easy link to the [[The ESE (process)]] page

This is the easy link to the [[The Land]] page

===Invitations to trail-off and ice pressure ridges :===

This is the easy link to the [[Caribou hunt]] page

This is the easy link to the [[Driving the Island]] page

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Chores Around Town" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Chores Around Town|Invitation: Help Out With Chores Around Town]]</span> page

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Conference_calls_from_the_road" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Conference calls from the road#Butter|Invitation: Take a Ride in Butter]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Checking Seal Dens" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Checking Seal Dens|Invitation: Checking Seal Dens]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Spending Time in a Cabin" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Spending Time in a Cabin|Invitation: Spending Time in a Cabin]]</span>

This is the easy link to the [[Spring Coral Harbour]] pressure ridge

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective ice pressure ridge link" data-page-title="Covid 19 personal whereabouts" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Ice-pressure_ridge">[[Covid 19 personal whereabouts|Ice pressure ridge: Covid 19 personal whereabouts]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Tech,_TEK_and_Tea" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Tech, TEK and Tea|Invitation: Tech, TEK and Tea]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective link" data-page-title="Seasonal Activities" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Ice-pressure_ridge">[[Seasonal Activities|Ice pressure ridge: Seasonal Activities]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="redirective ice pressure ridge link" data-page-title="Arctic Travel" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Ice-pressure_ridge">[[Arctic Travel|Ice pressure ridge: Arctic Travel]]</span>

===Detours and returns:===

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning" data-section-id="4" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning#The BearWatch Project|Return to Cut 3 the BW Project]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning" data-section-id="7">[[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning#Workshops Summer 2019|Return to cut 3 Workshops]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning" data-section-id="6" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning#TEK Workshops|Return to the BearWatch project]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_and_the_knowledge-land-scape" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring and the knowledge-land-scape|Return to your detour]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 1 link" data-page-title="Voices_of_Thunder" data-section-id="4" data-encounter-type="return">[[Voices of Thunder#Ongoing Conversations|(Re)turn to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder Conversations]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning" data-section-id="8" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning#Coral Harbour First Trip 2020|Return to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BW project]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring the BW project" data-section-id="6" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project#Fieldtrip BW team Coral Harbour Summer 2021|Return to Cut 3: BW project]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring the BW project" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project#Covid-19 Remote Interviews|Return to Cut 3: BW project]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring the BW project" data-section-id="2" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project#Fieldtrip BW team Coral Harbour Summer 2021|Return to Cut 3: BW project]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project" data-section-id="3" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project#Fieldtrip BW Team Gjoa Haven Summer 2021|Return to Cut 3]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project" data-section-id="5" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project#Meetings Spring 2022 Gjoa Haven|Return to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BearWatch Project]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project" data-section-id="6" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project#Meetings Spring 2022 Coral Harbour|Return to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BearWatch Project]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="return to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_projectg" data-section-id="8" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project#Wayfaring Calendar Pilot|Return to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BearWatch Project]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Intra-dependency" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[intra-dependency|Detour: look up the meaning of "intra-dependency"]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 3 link" data-page-title="GE3Ls" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[GE3Ls|Detour: Read more about GE3Ls]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 1 link" data-page-title="Voices of Thunder" data-section-id="7" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Voices of Thunder#Voices of Thunder Testimonies|Detour to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder Testimonies]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 2 link" data-page-title="Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary|Detour to Cut 2: Aesthetic Action, co-creating a graphic documentary]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 1 link" data-page-title="Voices of Thunder" data-section-id="8" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Voices of Thunder#Voices of Thunder Animated Graphic Documentary|Detour to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder Animated Graphic Documentary]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 3 link" data-page-title=" Community-lead Sampling CH 2021" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Community-lead Sampling CH 2021|Detour: Community-lead Sampling CH 2022]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour link" data-page-title="Collage and Zine-Making" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Collage and Zine-Making|Detour to a new track along cut 3]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour link" data-page-title="Point of Beginning Mx. Science" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Point of Beginning Mx. Science|Detour Cut 2: Point of Beginning Mx. Science]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour link" data-page-title="Another point of beginning Wayfaring method" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Another point of beginning Wayfaring method|Detour: Another point of beginning Wayfaring method]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 2 link" data-page-title="Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops" data-section-id="2" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Point of Beginning (Pre-)workshops#2 day Preworkshop GH|Detour: Cut 2 "2 day Preworkshop GH"]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="detour to cut 2 link" data-page-title="Aesthetic_Action" data-section-id="5" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Aesthetic Action#Aesthetic (in)action in BearWatch|Detour to Cut 2 "Aesthetic Action"]]</span>

===Great White Beasts===

This is the easy link to the <span class="pop-up stay-with-the-trouble link" data-page-title="Ethics_of_Response-Ability" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Stay_with_the_trouble">[[Ethics of Response-Ability|Stay with the trouble: Ethics of Response-Ability]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="pop-up stay-with-the-trouble link" data-page-title="Politics of Recognition" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Stay_with_the_trouble">[[Politics of Recognition|Stay with the trouble: Politics of Recognition]]</span>

===These are the Emergent Landmarks:===

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Entering_into_relationship" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Entering into relationship|Landmark: "Entering into relationship"]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Knowledge_as_Movement_and_Dwelling" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Knowledge as Movement and Dwelling|Emergent Landmark: Knowledge as Movement and Dwelling]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Seasonal Changes" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Seasonal Changes|Landmark: Seasonal Changes]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="The Wreck-site" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[The Wreck-site|Landmark: The Wreck-site]]</span>

===These are the Wrecksites (De/Marcating the knowledge land scape):===

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up wrecksite link" data-page-title="Knowledge Co-production" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="wrecksite">[[Knowledge Co-production|Wrecksite: Knowledge Co-production]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up wrecksite link" data-page-title="The Distanced Observer" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="wrecksite">[[The Distanced Observer|Wrecksite: The Distanced Observer]]</span>

This is the easy link to the <span class="Pop-up wrecksite link" data-page-title="Optic Matters" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="wrecksite">[[Optic Matters|Wrecksite: Optic Matters]]</span>

This is the easy link to the [[Ethical Space of Engagement]] page

This is the easy link to the [[references]] page

[[Principles of ESE and ICC-Protocols]]

Do Nothing

2025-02-28T12:05:05Z

77.174.243.90:

Doing nothing will not dismantle ongoing settler-coloniality within polar bear management and monitoring. Nor will it render those of us active in this field, innocent.

<div class="next_choice">Check out the '''"Wrecksite"''' after all, to see if you can find another path to stay with the trouble of "recognition".

Or,

'''"(Re-)turn"''' to Cut 3 to fully disengage, and focus on other objectives of the BearWatch. You will leave "Voices of Thunder".</div>

<span class="pop-up wrecksite link" data-page-title="Science based Conservation" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="wrecksite">[[Science based Conservation|Wrecksite: Science-based Conservation]]</span>

<span class="return to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring the BearWatch Project" data-section-id="11" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BearWatch Project#Coral Harbour First Trip 2020|Return to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BearWatch project]]</span>

Point of Beginning Mx. Science

2025-02-09T18:22:40Z

77.174.243.90: /* Annual Scientific Meeting Mx. Science */

<small>Estimated time to follow this cut: minutes</small>

This is one of three case studies conducted as part of my research that seeks to explore how ethical knowledge conciliation may come to matter within community-based polar bear research alongside aesthetic action.

This particular case study was informed by the other two cuts of community-based co-creative filmmaking, and the organization of the final BearWatch (pre-)workshops. It diffractively cuts across two events: the final BearWatch (pre-)workshop in Gjoa Haven, and the Annual Science Meeting (ASM), a large conference platform that connects researchers and scientists from across the Circumpolar Arctic. performance-based exploration of how the technicalities of drag may allow for the reconfiguration of what it means to be a community-based researcher.

The aesthetic action that is traced along this cut, is the performative presence of "Mx. Science".

=Mx. Science=

[[File:20221020 122351.jpg|thumb]]

"Mx. Science", is a situated, playful, reconfigurative invitation to reimagine (a) scien/ce/tist, performed by me.

As Mx. Science, I practice (my) research while displaying various (in)determinate signifiers. Some of these allow me to be categorized- for example as a scientists/researcher (wearing a laboratory-coat, and safety glasses, referring to sciences that conduct laboratory experiments, while also wearing various lenses and a carrying a clipboard for notes, that signal towards disciplines like anthropology, or geography). Other ways of presenting, however, defy categorization. Mx. Science is for example not determinately human (blue-skinned), or cis-gendered (for example, tonal qualities of my voice that are dissonant with gendered presentations like facial hair).

Mx. Science is performed by me, a non-Inuit researcher conducting research from a western educational institute and as part of the BearWatch team. The performance can therefore not be seen as an intervention: a movement from the outside-in. Neither can my use of make-up and choice of clothing and attributes be understood as fitting fully "inside" the social contracts of the spaces within which I have introduced Mx. Science. Mx. science is therefore rather a diffractive event, proposed from the liminal.

Acting from such a liminal space, I made sure to receive explicit sanction and input from the BearWatch PI's, as well as community-partners, representatives and participants.

<div class="next_choice">'''Keep Going''' to read more on such community sanction and the liminal.</div>

=First introductions=

I had first introduced Mx. Science to the school in Coral Harbour, by invitation of the grade four teacher and with permission from the school principle. Mx. Science, being a very colourful and playful character was received positively by the school, students and teachers. Although no formal data was collected, I received informal feedback from the teacher and principle that my presence was very much enjoyed by multiple people in the school, and that there was expressed desire for me to return to the school.

After this brief but positive experience in Coral Harbour, I introduced Mx. Science during the second day of the pre-workshop in Gjoa Haven, to discuss its potential and the desirability of introducing a playful element into an important gathering. Again, the persona was very positively received, and the decision was made with sanction from the Gjoa Haven HTA, the BearWatch PI's and the participants of the pre-workshop to host the final gathering as Mx. Science.

[[File:Mx. visiting grade 4.jpg|thumb]]
[[File:Mx cabin.png|thumb]]

<div class="next_choice">If you arrived at this cross-road after visiting the Coral Harbour school, and wish to continue wayfaring the Bearwatch project, '''"Return"''' to Cut 3.

If you arrived here as part of the Mx. Science case-study or the pre-workshop in Gjoa Haven, then go check out the '''Landmark''' "Becoming Other".</div>

<span class="return to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Collage and Zine-Making" data-section-id="3" data-encounter-type="return">[[Collage and Zine-Making#Wayfaring Calendar Pilot|Return to Cut 3: "Wayfaring the BW Project"]]</span>

<span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Becoming Other" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="landmark">[[Becoming Other|Landmark: Becoming Other]]</span>

=The Liminal Scientist=

By presenting a liminal figure of "the scientist", it becomes possible to query science and scientists themselves as a phenomenon that includes boundaries and properties. This in turn makes it possible to explore all the im/possible ways of being "different" within such a phenomena.

"Mx. Science" invites non-indigenous researchers (including myself) to rethink and reflect on their presence and the positions they take up in different contexts. As a figure that can unsettle taken for granted terms of engagements in multiple ways, Mx. Science holds the potential to open up a liminal space within which new relationships can be sensed or "felt" out, and provoke conversations about how we encounter each other across our differences. As a situated performance it is both an exercise in new ways of engaging each other through genuine curiosity, as well as an effective tool to que(e)ry where and when differentiated bodies dis/connect in space.

[[File:Mx science without background.png|thumb]]

=Drag as a Diffractive Method=

The creation of Mx. Science, as a method, draws from my practice as a dragking (classically defined as a male-impersonator). As a performer, I explore non-binary, female, and more-than-human masculinities, and am part of a relatively recent revival of drag’-kings’, ‘-quings’ and ‘-things’ across the "global North". This generation of (club-)performers can be understood to have in common, a politically informed stage, or nightlife practice, that undoes, or "bends" traditional, western categorical understandings of gender, sex and family through queer kinship structures.

The techniques employed within drag to que(e)ry, perform, undo or bend boundaries and categories like the ‘natural’ and the ‘human’ can also be directly applied towards questions around the social ecologies of environmental research and management.

Arctic ‘wildernesses’, for example, can be seen as sites for the enactment of a specific hetero masculinity associated with physical strength, roughness, ingenuity, and self-realization (Sandilands & Ericson, 2010). Such sites of enactment (can) extend into scientific spaces, like laboratories or lecture rooms, reproducing hegemonic masculinities and perpetuating racial and gender inequalities and unequal power relations (MacGregor & Seymour, 2017). Drag has the potential to de-naturalize and unsettle such masculinities by embodying its technologies as separable from sex. Such masculinity, as performed through drag then becomes liminal, a place beyond categories – a space of play; ‘the betwixt and between’ through which shape-shifting figures turn things on their heads and pass on their way from one state of being to another (Rosenfeld, 2003). Taking these techniques and applying them not so much towards normative categories of gender, but towards norms upheld within western scientific spaces, opens our understanding of its conventions and social contracts in similar ways. Drag can thus, shift fixed positions, and transform everyday expectations and habits, that allows us to not to conduct transformative research – but also transform the researcher itself.

=Annual Scientific Meeting Mx. Science=

To better understand the possibilities Mx. Science enables to imagine ethical encounter outside of its conventional institutional structures, I had asked and gained permission from the organizers the Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM), also known as the ArticNet Conference in Toronto, in December 2022 - to attend as Mx. Science, directly after the final workshops in Nunavut.

I had informed the organizers that I would only be present, and did not require a stage or a timeslot as Mx. Science. During the 3-day conference, I attended as Mx. Science, and observed how people responded to me, as I moved through the conference space. Every day I recorded my experiences, at the start and end of the day. In the weeks afterward I followed up with 15 people, who I had conversed with at the conference to conduct a follow-up interview.

[[File:20221207 152641.jpg|thumb]]
[[File:20221207 152657.jpg|thumb]]

<div class="next_choice">Take a closer look at the Landmark, to see how the experiences shared during these interviews eventually configured the haunting presence of a "Great White Beast" in this Knowledge-Land-Scape.</div>

<span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="The Great White Beast" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="landmark">[[The Great White Beast|Landmark: "The Great White Beast"]]</span>

=The Liminal and the Ethical Space=

This liminal performance of (a) scien/ce/tist, provided several insight on the different im/possibilities for co-creating an ethical space of engagement in the context of the BearWatch workshops and ASM.

Firstly, Mx. Science turned out to function as what I later understood to be a diffractive device. My follow-up interviews were semi-structured conversations, designed to explore the meaning that could be attributed to my presence at the conference. What became apparent after 15 interviews, however, was that such meaning could often not be separated from the meaning-makers own movements through the conference and other scientific spaces.

=Another Point of Beginning=

You have reached "Another Point of Beginning". These are not conclusive endings to my research, but rather perform at the cusp of emergence: They are a story so-far. Some of these points mark the end of funding cycles or project activities. Or they mark the limitations and scope of this particular PhD dissertation. Others are trails, and tracks that have faded out, as they remained un-revisited. They however always mark one moment along an ongoing animate line of correspondence between multiple agencies, and they usually allow for continuing with another cut.

This is where we take account for our journey so far. This journey is always partial, and so are the insights we have built on our way. You can trace the path you have taken through this Knowledge-Land-Scape by clicking the "trace" bar in the upper left corner of your screen. It will allow you to account for some of the insights that your journey has given you. The map below shows you the full extent of wayfaring possibilities of the scape.

<HTML><iframe width="768" height="432" src="https://miro.com/app/live-embed/uXjVLuaaSIw=/?moveToViewport=-6303,-1839,4422,3256&embedId=190872630107" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allow="fullscreen; clipboard-read; clipboard-write" allowfullscreen></iframe></html>

<div class="next_choice">This cut has taken you along the development of Mx. Science and the performative possibilities this persona has enabled to imagine science and scientists as a phenomena outside of it conventional apparatus. In fact you have only been able to find this cut through attentive engagement with others as you have been making your way along other tracks and paths. This case study tracked an approach to explore the meaning of "ethical space" that might have not been immediately intuitive. It is however, an attempt to directly implicate myself into the stakes that are at play when engaging in such trans-cultural boundary work. Keep going to explore how Mx. Science has continued its material agencies beyond this cut.</div>

=Beyond the Cut=

[[File:Beyond the cut.png|thumb]]

Through my interventions with Mx. Science I have gained an interest in what can be done through self-directed work of un-learning, decentering- and decolonizing the western scientist in cross-cultural contexts. For transformative practices to come to fruition, such un/learning should happen both by accepting leadership and practicing respectful collaboration with non-western partners, as well as through a self-initiated repositioning.

To explore the future possibilities of drag and performance art to decolonize, and unsettle scientific conventions within its own institutional spaces I have organized a workshop at the Descartes Institute of Science and Technology Studies at Utrecht University in 2024.

In February 2025, I was invited to attend a three-day general assembly meeting of a EU-funded Horizon 2020 research project as Mx. Science.

In April 2025 I will start an eight month fellowship with the Arctic Governance Research Group of the RIFS Institute in Potsdam to explore the diffractive possibilities Mx. Science offers within the scientific institute.

<span class="detour to-cut-1 link" data-page-title="Voices of Thunder" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Voices of Thunder|Detour to Cut 1: Cut 1 Voices of Thunder]]</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Aesthetic_Action" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Aesthetic Action#Aesthetic (in)action in BearWatch|Detour to Cut 2: Cut 2 Aesthetic (in)action in BearWatch]]</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning|Detour to Cut 3: Cut 3 Wayfaring the BW project]]</span>

Point of Beginning Mx. Science

2025-01-30T14:05:21Z

77.174.243.90:

This is one of three case studies conducted as part of my research that seeks to explore how ethical knowledge conciliation may come to matter within community-based polar bear research alongside aesthetic action.

This particular case study was informed by the other two cuts of community-based co-creative filmmaking, and the organization of the final BearWatch (pre-)workshops. It diffractively cuts across two events: the final BearWatch (pre-)workshop in Gjoa Haven, and the Annual Science Meeting (ASM), a large conference platform that connects researchers and scientists from across the Circumpolar Arctic. performance-based exploration of how the technicalities of drag may allow for the reconfiguration of what it means to be a community-based researcher.

The aesthetic action that is traced along this cut, is the participatory presence of "Mx. Science".

=Nukatugaq - Mx. Science=

picture

Mx. Science, is developed as a responsive exploration towards understanding what it means to encounter another in a third space. By querying the boundaries and properties of the scientists as a phenomenon, I was seeking to gain a sensitized understanding of the possible ways of being a scientists outside of the systemic conventions of the western institute - in the third space.

However, I did not want to do so without the explicit sanction of the communities that I was working in.

I had first introduced Mx. Science to the school in Coral Harbour, by invitation of the grade four teacher and with permission from the school principle. Mx. Science, being a very colourful and playful character was received positively by the school, students and teachers. No formal data was collected, but I received informal feedback that my presence was very much enjoyed from multiple people in the school.

After this brief but positive experience, I introduced Mx. Science during the second day of the pre-workshop in Gjoa Haven, to discuss its potential and the desirability of introducing a playful element into an important gathering. Again, the persona was very positively received, and the decision was made with sanction from the Gjoa Haven HTA, the BearWatch PI's and the advisory committee of the pre-workshop to host the final gathering as Mx. Science. In fact, that day I was renamed "Nukatugaq" (Young male polar bear cub).

[[File:Mx. visiting grade 4.jpg|thumb]]
[[File:Mx cabin.png|thumb]]

"Mx. Science" invites especially non-indigenous researchers to rethink and reflect on their role and position in our scientific landscape. As a figure that potentially unsettles several norms within the Arctic sciences, Mx. Science holds potential to invoke conversations, and create a liminal space to build new relationships. As a situated performance it is both an exercise in new ways of engaging each other through genuine curiosity, as well as an effective tool to que(e)ry where and when differentiated bodies dis/connect in space.

<div class="next_choice">If you arrived at this cross-road after visiting the Coral Harbour school - return to Cut 3.

If you arrived here as part of the Mx. Science case-study or the pre-workshop in Gjoa Haven, then go check out the Landmark insight "Becoming Other".</div>

Keep going, to keep following the cut of the Mx. Science.

<span class="return to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Collage and Zine-Making" data-section-id="3" data-encounter-type="return">[[Collage and Zine-Making#Wayfaring Calendar Pilot|Cut 3 "Wayfaring the BW Project"]]</span>

<span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Becoming Other" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Becoming Other|Landmark: Becoming Other]]</span>

=Queer performance or shapeshifting=

Mx. Science draws from my own queer lived experience to question the im/possibilities of working with Inuit people as a non-Inuit researcher. I draw from western drag practices to perform an opening for such conversations.

[[File:Mx science without background.png|thumb]]

As an ‘AFAB’ (Assigned Female At Birth) performer that explores non-binary, and female masculinities as well as the trans-human body, I am part of a recent global revival of drag’-kings’, ‘-quings’ and ‘-things’. This generation of (club-)performers shapes an avant-garde community that addresses contemporary political issues, while undoing traditional, western categorical understandings of gender, sex and family by queer kinship structures. Such undoing of boundaries, and queering of categories like the ‘natural’ and the ‘human’ has direct connections with the social ecologies of environmental research and management. The Arctic ‘wildernesses’, for example, can be seen as sites for the enactment of a specific hetero masculinity associated with physical strength, roughness, ingenuity, and self-realization (Sandilands & Ericson, 2010). Such sites of enactment (can) extend into the scientific laboratory, reproducing hegemonic masculinities and perpetuating racial and gender inequalities and unequal power relations (MacGregor & Seymour, 2017). Drag has the potential to for example de-naturalize and unsettle such masculinities by embodying its technologies as separable from sex. Such masculinity, as performed through drag then becomes liminal, a place beyond categories – a space of play; ‘the betwixt and between’ through which shape-shifting figures turn things on their heads and pass on their way from one state of being to another (Rosenfeld, 2003). Taking these techniques and applying them not so much on gender, but on western science, its conventions and categories, opens our understanding in similar ways. Drag can thus, shift fixed positions, and transform everyday expectations and habits, that allows us to not only explore what it entails to transform research – but also the researcher.

=Annual Scientific Meeting Mx. Science=

To better understand the possibilities Mx. Science enables for western scientists to imagine ethical encounter outside of its conventional institutional structures, I had asked and gained permission from the organizers the Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM), also known as the ArticNet Conference in Toronto, in December 2022 - to attend as Mx. Science directly after the final workshops in Nunavut.

I had informed the organizers that I would only be present, and did not require a stage or a timeslot as Mx. Science. The panel that I would have been presenting in had been cancelled last-minute, and the screening of "Voices of Thunder", had happened during the first student days, which I didn't attended as Mx. Science. During the main part of the conference, I attended as Mx. Science, and observed both how I moved through the conference space, as well as how people responded to me. I recorded my conversations with people, and followed up with 15 of them to conduct a follow-up interview.

[[File:20221207 152641.jpg|thumb]]
[[File:20221207 152657.jpg|thumb]]

<div class="next_choice">Take a closer look at the Landmark, to see how these interviews provided input for the figure of the "Great White Beast" that haunts this knowledge-land-scape.</div>

<span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="The Great White Beast" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[The Great White Beast|Landmark: "The Great white Beast"]]</span>

=The Liminal as Ethical Space=

Several insights emerged from my presence at ASM and the 15 follow-up interviews I conducted.

Firstly, Mx. Science turned out to function as a diffractive device. My follow-up interviews were semi-structured conversations design to explore the materiality and the meaning that could be attributed to my presence at the conference. It became apparent after 15 interviews, however, that the answers to such questions could not be separated from the person who was observing Mx. Science.

What had become clear at the final workshops, at the ASM conference and was also reiterated at the interviews was that most people expected Mx. Science to re-present a clear underlying message about science or scientists. The majority of people who approached me, asked "what" my presence was about. Interestingly enough, very few people asked "why" I was present as Mx. Science.

More insights

=Another Point of Beginning=

You have reached "Another Point of Beginning". These are not conclusive endings to my research, but rather perform at the cusp of emergence: They are a story so-far. Some of these points mark the end of funding cycles or project activities. Or they mark the limitations and scope of this particular PhD dissertation. Others are trails, and tracks that have faded out, as they remained un-revisited. They however always mark one moment along an ongoing animate line of correspondence between multiple agencies, and they usually allow for continuing with another cut.

This is where we take account for our journey so far. This journey is always partial, and so are the insights we have built on our way. You can trace the path you have taken through this Knowledge-Land-Scape by clicking the "trace" bar in the upper left corner of your screen. It will allow you to account for some of the insights that your journey has given you. The map below shows you the full extent of wayfaring possibilities of the scape.

<HTML><iframe width="768" height="432" src="https://miro.com/app/live-embed/uXjVLuaaSIw=/?moveToViewport=-6303,-1839,4422,3256&embedId=190872630107" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allow="fullscreen; clipboard-read; clipboard-write" allowfullscreen></iframe></html>

<div class="next_choice">This cut has taken you along the development of Mx. Science and the performative possibilities this persona has enabled to imagine science and scientists as a phenomena outside of it conventional apparatus. In fact you have only been able to find this cut through attentive engagement with others as you have been making your way along other tracks and paths. This case study tracked an approach to explore the meaning of "ethical space" that might have not been immediately intuitive. It is however, an attempt to directly implicate myself into the stakes that are at play when engaging in such trans-cultural boundary work. Keep going to explore how Mx. Science has continued its material agencies beyond this cut.</div>

=Beyond the Cut=

[[File:Beyond the cut.png|thumb]]

Through my interventions with Mx. Science I have gained an interest in what can be done through self-directed work of un-learning, decentering- and decolonizing the western scientist in cross-cultural contexts. For transformative practices to come to fruition, such un/learning should happen both by accepting leadership and practicing respectful collaboration with non-western partners, as well as through a self-initiated repositioning.

To explore the future possibilities of drag and performance art to decolonize, and unsettle scientific conventions within its own institutional spaces I have organized a workshop at the Descartes Institute of Science and Technology Studies at Utrecht University in 2024. In April 2025 I will start an eight month fellowship with the Arctic Governance Research Group of the RIFS Institute in Potsdam to explore the diffractive possibilities Mx. Science offers within the scientific institute.

<span class="detour to cut 1 link" data-page-title="Voices of Thunder" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Voices of Thunder|Cut 1 Voices of Thunder]]</span>

<span class="detour to cut 2 link" data-page-title="Aesthetic_Action" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Aesthetic Action#Aesthetic (in)action in BearWatch|Cut 2 Aesthetic (in)action in BearWatch]]</span>

<span class="detour to cut 3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning|Cut 3 Wayfaring the BW project]]</span>

Listening & Witnessing Landmark

2025-01-29T22:19:21Z

77.174.243.90:

[[File:Landmark.png|thumb]]

The Inuit Circumpolar Council Protocol 4 ask to communicate with intent: "Listen more than you speak (...) Our voices hold knowledge and expertise that needs to be respected during our communications. This often requires listening with an openness to hear what is
being shared before you speak<ref>Inuit Circumpolar Council (2022 p.22). Circumpolar Inuit Protocols for Equitable and Ethical Engagement.</ref>.

With limited time in the field and multiple additional responsibilities tied to academic reward structures for tenure-track positions and granting agencies, like the emphasis on production of ‘new knowledge’ and training students, the current academic landscape is not well aligned with Indigenous conceptions of relational accountability <ref>Castleden, H., Sloan Morgan, V., & Lamb, C. (2012). “I spent the first year drinking tea”: Exploring Canadian university researchers’ perspectives on community‐based participatory research involving Indigenous peoples. The Canadian Geographer 56(2), 160-179.</ref>.

However, the rights and concerns of the Indigenous people we partner with, can’t be an afterthought. Regardless of the scope and methods of our research projects. We should, as community-based researchers, at the very least make space and listen to the communities we partner with.

<div class="next_choice"> Gjoa Haven's Voices of Thunder redirected the Bearwatch researchers, to pause, and engage in different kinds of listening. Protocol 1, directive 2 states that Inuit concerns and voices must be heard (<ref>Inuit Circumpolar Council (2022 p.17). Circumpolar Inuit Protocols for Equitable and Ethical Engagement.</ref>.

Only once the space was created to listen, we could engage in "substantive exchange of ideas, knowledge, and views on how those voices could best be shared <ref>(ibid)</ref>". Remaining responsive to each other and the challenges that presented themselves once we started engaging in practices of co-creating, however, allowed us to practice a form of accepting testimony that helped us move from passive empathy towards actively implicating ourselves, and asking how we may contribute to change in the practices and structures of the agential apparatuses that we are part of.</div>"

<span class="return to-cut-1 link" data-page-title="Multiple Voices" data-section-id="11" data-encounter-type="return">[[Multiple Voices#Another Point of Beginning|Return to Cut 1 Voices of Thunder for Another Point of Beginning]]</span>

Entering Into Relationship

2025-01-17T17:14:12Z

77.174.243.90:

[[File:Landmark.png|thumb]]

To "enter into into relationship" in an Inuit context, means to partake in the reciprocal customs of gifting and sharing, and allowing yourself to be transformed by those processes (Martin, 2016).

The filming of Kathy and Janet throatsinging, of Percy and Aldina drumdancing on the tundra, and Holle, Angeline and Mary singing the Pihhiq, was more part of such "entering into relationship", that it was about collecting data about traditional songs and dance, and the knowledge that is embedded within them. Although the potentials for knowledge renewal between generations were obvious once engaged in the practices and processes of filmmaking, this seemed to have less to do with the film making, or even the particular activity that we were filming, than with the fact that these activities allowed us to come together and create something.

Although, I was provided months later after I returned to share initial edits, with a line-by-line rough interpretation of the Pihhiq, it already was clear to me that as a non-Inuit researcher I would not be able to fully grasp the extent of cultural significance that these aesthetic actions embody. What I could do, however, as a community-based researcher with a professional background in film was engage with these practices by way of film-making. As each person brought their own knowledge, skills, and practices to the process of doing so, the shooting of these video provided for a space to encounter each other on our own terms.

<div class="next_choice">Return to cut 2</div>

<span class="return to cut 2 link" data-page-title="Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary" data-section-id="3" data-encounter-type="return">[[Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary#Audio Recording and Translation|Return to Cut 2: "Co-creating the Animated Graphic Documentary"]]</span>

Community co-creation

2025-01-17T14:46:42Z

77.174.243.90: /* Storytelling at the Heritage Centre */

During the summer of 2021, my accommodation was the, what is referred to in the community of Gjoa Haven, ‘old arcade’ or the ‘blue house’. This blue house functioned as a launch pad for on-the-land sampling activities for multiple research projects due to its size and affordances for storage. It would also house several graduate and undergraduate students, including myself, that joined for the first part of the trip. Finally, it functioned as a meeting space where we would cook and eat together. There is power and heating in the building, but no facilities or windows. What it lacked in comfort however, it made up in opportunities to connect with people that the hotel did not as easily allow for. Knowing that we were based in the blue house, people would be passing by to pick up supplies and payments slips, or just to chat.

After most other students had left and returned back to the south, having the blue house to my disposal also made it much easier to coordinate audio-recordings, interviews, and other film-related activities.

=Throatsinging=

During the storyboarding and artwork phase of filmmaking, we had also started to discuss what kind of soundtrack the film would need.
Soon, I was pointed towards Janet Aglukkaq, who had been taught the technique of throatsinging by her mom? and continues to teach others by practice. I met up with Janet and her friend Kathy Okpik, at Kathy’s house to record and film their singing. The choice to film this, rather than only audio-record it, was initially a strategic one; filming would mean additional video content that could generate attention around the "Voices of Thunder". Very quickly however, it became clear that filming would also provide a reason to come together and sing, a valuable purpose in its own right.

<HTML>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zNwo4WICXag?si=tlCjj3rixAKldXxU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</html>

Turning the recording of their throatsinging into a music video allowed us to get creative in coming up with a little storyline. Only having a couple of hours available that day to finish the filming, we decided on a very simple story-arch of two friends visiting each other and throatsinging together. We staged some shots of how they would meet: Kathy making coffee, Janet entering the house, and the friends greeting each other.

As they start singing, the camera zooms in, as the frame fades into a white-out and reappears as the two of them singing on the land surrounding Gjoa Haven. To shoot the scene of Kathy and Janet throatsinging on the land, we of course had to travel outside of the hamlet, which caused considerable excitement for both women and Serge, Kathy’s younger brother, who joined us. It was through our conversations between filming and driving outside the community to find a good location to film the second part of the video, that I learnt how many community members would not have the resources (like vehicles or money) to go outside of the hamlet, onto the land.

Shooting this video provided an opportunity to be out on the land and practice the tradition of throatsinging. Something that, even though it took us only 15 minutes to drive up to the road where we were filming, can be seen as a privilege that is not accessible to everyone in the community.

=Pihhiq & Drumdancing=

I was also connected to Christina Porter by the Gjoa Haven HTA, as another option for the video soundtrack. Christina is a teacher at the Gjoa Haven school and very involved with drumdancing in Gjoa Haven. Although she doesn’t dance a lot herself anymore, her daughter Aldina Porter and one of the young men we worked with a lot in town; Percy Iqualaq, do. Christina consulted us on the meaning of drumdancing and how these dances were often accompagnied with a "Pihhiq". A Pihhiq is a song that is connected to a specific well-respected hunter from the community. They are traditional songs, that describe the life or specific huntingstories of that hunter, and are sung by descendants of that hunter from memory.

<HTML>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xBCzPuIq2vk?si=KN4U6i494v6WeXXw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</html>

Christina helped us gather drums, traditional drumdancing garbs and called three women that would occasionally sing together; Mary Iqiruak, Angelina Aglukkaq and Holle Porter. First we audio-recorded the Pihhiq and the drumdance inside the blue house to make sure that we would have an audiorecording of decent quality. We recorded both visual as well as audio footage of the women singing the Pihhiq song inside a canvas tent that we had set up in the blue house. As they were singing, the three women closed their eyes. After the first take, I asked them why they had done so. They commented that they could just ‘see’ the land that they were singing about when they would close their eyes, indicating a clear connection between the Pihhiq and the land they’re singing about.

After having filmed the three women singing in the tent we drove them, Christina and the two drumdancers out to the land around the community, close to where some people have their cabins and stayed there for a couple of hours. We filmed Percy and Aldina as they were drumdancing, and the women as they were singing their Pihhiq over and over again. The women were enjoying themselves so much they were not paying attention to whether they were being filmed or not, and just continued singing as long as they enjoyed themselves. This was demonstrated by the occurrence of them ending their song and chatting amongst each other at the exact moment they emerged in the frame during a technically complicated drone shot. Mary commented, like Kathy had, after filming on the land, that it had been a very long time ago that she had been able to go out on the land, and that she had "so much fun"! More than two years later, during the evaluation of the final BearWatch workshops, she recalled how she had initially felt a little intimidated by the whole set-up of singing in the tent, but how much she had enjoyed the day of filming and how grateful she was for the opportunity to sing with the other women and the dancers out on the land.

=Storytelling at the Heritage Centre=

The conversations I had during the filming of the throatsinging and Pihhiq singing, made it clear that the value of filming such traditional practices, extended beyond the original purposes of recording such practices. Although these videos and audio-recordings could indeed be used as a soundtrack to the "Voices of Thunder" documentary, or used as part of an advocacy strategy to generate recognition for the impacts of polar bear quota reductions - it also became clear that the process of filming these practices, for example on the land, in itself, provided possibilities and conditions for people of different generations to come together and practice their traditional songs and dances in ways that are not always possible.

The possibilities for the younger generation to learn from older generations, became clear at several moments during the preparation and filming of the drumdancing and singing of the pihhiq- and also later at the community screenings of the films- when the elders explained certain moments of the pihhiq and drumdancing.

Understanding the material possibilities for knowledge renewal that filmmaking in the community could offer beyond merely the final product, resulted in the organization of a filmmaking workshop and storytelling session at the Netsilik Heritage Center. We hired a young Gjoa Haven-based filmmaker: Barbara Qitsualik to facilitate a filmmaking workshop for community youth. She trained (number) youth to operate a film-camera that we rented from the Natsilik Hereitage Center, for two afternoons. On the third day, we brought in (number) elders, and two people of middle age, and an interpretor to how storytelling sessions in the Heritage Centre. such video recording

<span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Entering_into_relationship" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Entering into relationship|Landmark: "Entering into relationship"]]</span>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Drinking Coffee" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Drinking Coffee|Invitation: Drinking Coffee]]</span>

Community co-creation

2025-01-17T14:46:18Z

77.174.243.90: /* Storytelling at the Heritage Centre */

During the summer of 2021, my accommodation was the, what is referred to in the community of Gjoa Haven, ‘old arcade’ or the ‘blue house’. This blue house functioned as a launch pad for on-the-land sampling activities for multiple research projects due to its size and affordances for storage. It would also house several graduate and undergraduate students, including myself, that joined for the first part of the trip. Finally, it functioned as a meeting space where we would cook and eat together. There is power and heating in the building, but no facilities or windows. What it lacked in comfort however, it made up in opportunities to connect with people that the hotel did not as easily allow for. Knowing that we were based in the blue house, people would be passing by to pick up supplies and payments slips, or just to chat.

After most other students had left and returned back to the south, having the blue house to my disposal also made it much easier to coordinate audio-recordings, interviews, and other film-related activities.

=Throatsinging=

During the storyboarding and artwork phase of filmmaking, we had also started to discuss what kind of soundtrack the film would need.
Soon, I was pointed towards Janet Aglukkaq, who had been taught the technique of throatsinging by her mom? and continues to teach others by practice. I met up with Janet and her friend Kathy Okpik, at Kathy’s house to record and film their singing. The choice to film this, rather than only audio-record it, was initially a strategic one; filming would mean additional video content that could generate attention around the "Voices of Thunder". Very quickly however, it became clear that filming would also provide a reason to come together and sing, a valuable purpose in its own right.

<HTML>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zNwo4WICXag?si=tlCjj3rixAKldXxU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</html>

Turning the recording of their throatsinging into a music video allowed us to get creative in coming up with a little storyline. Only having a couple of hours available that day to finish the filming, we decided on a very simple story-arch of two friends visiting each other and throatsinging together. We staged some shots of how they would meet: Kathy making coffee, Janet entering the house, and the friends greeting each other.

As they start singing, the camera zooms in, as the frame fades into a white-out and reappears as the two of them singing on the land surrounding Gjoa Haven. To shoot the scene of Kathy and Janet throatsinging on the land, we of course had to travel outside of the hamlet, which caused considerable excitement for both women and Serge, Kathy’s younger brother, who joined us. It was through our conversations between filming and driving outside the community to find a good location to film the second part of the video, that I learnt how many community members would not have the resources (like vehicles or money) to go outside of the hamlet, onto the land.

Shooting this video provided an opportunity to be out on the land and practice the tradition of throatsinging. Something that, even though it took us only 15 minutes to drive up to the road where we were filming, can be seen as a privilege that is not accessible to everyone in the community.

=Pihhiq & Drumdancing=

I was also connected to Christina Porter by the Gjoa Haven HTA, as another option for the video soundtrack. Christina is a teacher at the Gjoa Haven school and very involved with drumdancing in Gjoa Haven. Although she doesn’t dance a lot herself anymore, her daughter Aldina Porter and one of the young men we worked with a lot in town; Percy Iqualaq, do. Christina consulted us on the meaning of drumdancing and how these dances were often accompagnied with a "Pihhiq". A Pihhiq is a song that is connected to a specific well-respected hunter from the community. They are traditional songs, that describe the life or specific huntingstories of that hunter, and are sung by descendants of that hunter from memory.

<HTML>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xBCzPuIq2vk?si=KN4U6i494v6WeXXw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</html>

Christina helped us gather drums, traditional drumdancing garbs and called three women that would occasionally sing together; Mary Iqiruak, Angelina Aglukkaq and Holle Porter. First we audio-recorded the Pihhiq and the drumdance inside the blue house to make sure that we would have an audiorecording of decent quality. We recorded both visual as well as audio footage of the women singing the Pihhiq song inside a canvas tent that we had set up in the blue house. As they were singing, the three women closed their eyes. After the first take, I asked them why they had done so. They commented that they could just ‘see’ the land that they were singing about when they would close their eyes, indicating a clear connection between the Pihhiq and the land they’re singing about.

After having filmed the three women singing in the tent we drove them, Christina and the two drumdancers out to the land around the community, close to where some people have their cabins and stayed there for a couple of hours. We filmed Percy and Aldina as they were drumdancing, and the women as they were singing their Pihhiq over and over again. The women were enjoying themselves so much they were not paying attention to whether they were being filmed or not, and just continued singing as long as they enjoyed themselves. This was demonstrated by the occurrence of them ending their song and chatting amongst each other at the exact moment they emerged in the frame during a technically complicated drone shot. Mary commented, like Kathy had, after filming on the land, that it had been a very long time ago that she had been able to go out on the land, and that she had "so much fun"! More than two years later, during the evaluation of the final BearWatch workshops, she recalled how she had initially felt a little intimidated by the whole set-up of singing in the tent, but how much she had enjoyed the day of filming and how grateful she was for the opportunity to sing with the other women and the dancers out on the land.

=Storytelling at the Heritage Centre=

The conversations I had during the filming of the throatsinging and Pihhiq singing, made it clear that the value of filming such traditional practices, extended beyond the original purposes of recording such practices. Although these videos and audio-recordings could indeed be used as a soundtrack to the "Voices of Thunder" documentary, or used as part of an advocacy strategy to generate recognition for the impacts of polar bear quota reductions - it also became clear that the process of filming these practices, for example on the land, in itself, provided possibilities and conditions for people of different generations to come together and practice their traditional songs and dances in ways that are not always possible.

The possibilities for the younger generation to learn from older generations, became clear at several moments during the preparation and filming of the drumdancing and singing of the pihhiq- and also later at the community screenings of the films- when the elders explained certain moments of the pihhiq and drumdancing.

Understanding the material possibilities for knowledge renewal that filmmaking in the community could offer beyond merely the final product, resulted in the organization of a filmmaking workshop and storytelling session at the Netsilik Heritage Center. We hired a young Gjoa Haven-based filmmaker: Barbara Qitsualik to facilitate a filmmaking workshop for community youth. She trained (number) youth to operate a film-camera that we rented from the Natsilik Hereitage Center, for two afternoons. On the third day, we brought in (number) elders, and two people of middle age, and an interprettor to how storytelling sessions in the Heritage Centre. such video recording

<span class="Pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Entering_into_relationship" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Entering into relationship|Landmark: "Entering into relationship"]]</span>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Drinking Coffee" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Drinking Coffee|Invitation: Drinking Coffee]]</span>

Covid 19 personal whereabouts

2025-01-13T19:13:46Z

77.174.243.90: /* Making a New Home */

[[File:Ice pressure ridge background a.png|thumb]]

The ice pressure ridge remind us that agency is not a property that is possessed by individual readers, researchers and authors. Our ways of becoming knowledgeable always correspond intra-dependently with many other agential forces, both human and non-human.

When the spread of Covid-19 was declared a pandemic it shaped an ice-pressure ridge that was so immense, that it not so much required me to redirect- as it asked me to re-position. Both figuratively and literally.

=Making a New Home=

In 2019, at the start of my doctoral studies I relocated to Katarokwi; Kingston, Ontario on the traditional homelands of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabek and Huron-Wendat nations. I had never intended this move to Kingston to be only a launch pad for my research in Inuit Nunangat. I arrived ready to commit- aspiring to make Kingston my new home.

The first months after my arrival were filled with activities to learn about- and build a relationship with this land, the communities on it, and its stories. I immersed myself, for my hope was that this place could perhaps eventually become a new home for me. Which it did, in multiple ways, over time.

The building of these relationships however became somewhat more complicated from 2020 onwards. The COVID-19 pandemic ended up uprooting me from all my home-bases, both Dutch and Canadian.

=The Netherlands in Isolation=

After the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, and I was able to catch a flight out of Coral Harbout, I initially chose to take shelter in my country of origin; the Netherlands. I stayed there for three months, after which the first wave of covid-19 had seemed to have passed. Having a high-risk parent, I did not take shelter in my family home in the Netherlands, and as a result I initially had to pay rent apartments both in Kingston and the Netherlands. After the first two months of self-isolating in Amsterdam, I moved in with my sister and her family, where I slept on an airbed and shared a room with my 2-year old nephew. Despite a lack of privacy, it was nice to be close to family. I preferred it above being alone in an apartment.

[[File:Selfportrait during lockdown.jpg|thumb|Selfportrait during lockdown]]

Nevertheless, my commitment to be present, and make a new home in Canada- combined with the financial stresses of double rent- eventually drew me back to Ontario at the first seemingly reasonable opportunity.

=Kingston in Isolation=

The reality of returning to Canada as an international student, during the Covid-19 pandemic, was- while I acknowledge my privilege of being able to stay safe and healthy- rough for me. Once back in Ontario, I was stuck in my tiny apartment by myself, without a university campus to go to, or access to the regions in which I would have to conduct my fieldwork. I wrote a lot. In the year that followed, between my return to Kingston in the late Summer of 2020 and the Summer of 2021, I worked on what would eventually become the testimonial reading of Gjoa Haven’s voices of Thunder.

By April 2021, I received the news that I was the recipient of a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, and by the end of June 2021 I had to return to the Netherlands for family matters. During this latter trip, I was offered an affordable apartment in Amsterdam- and decided, considering the ongoing uncertainty of Covid-19 pandemic to accept it. One month later, In July 2021, I received the news that we could travel to Nunavut again for fieldwork, and Canada slowly started to open up again.

From July 2021 onward, I continued my PhD in a state of flux. I would come to Canada for fieldwork, and spent an average of six weeks up North each trip. I would then stay, on average, another six weeks in Ontario. Usually I would spend up to twelve weeks back home in the Netherlands, before I would return again to Canada.

This rotation was possible because of my decision in September 2020 to purchase a campervan: "Butter". As a result of this purchase, my time in Canada took a completely different shape in comparison to what it had been before.

<span class="next_choice">
You have found a way to return to Cut 1 and learn more about the creative outputs, through which we were planning to share Gjoa Haven's Voices of Thunder.

Alternatively, you can accept an invite to tag along and take a ride in "Butter". This ride will allow you to learn about the opportunities that Covid-19 brought to my research, before returning to Cut 1.</span>

<span class="return to cut 1 link" data-page-title="Voices_of_Thunder" data-section-id="5" data-encounter-type="return">[[Voices of Thunder#3.2 Multiple voices|Return to cut 1: Voices of Thunder]]</span>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Conference_calls_from_the_road" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Conference_calls_from_the_road|Invitation: Thinking from the Road During Covid-19]]</span>

Covid 19 personal whereabouts

2025-01-13T19:13:24Z

77.174.243.90: /* Making a New Home */

[[File:Ice pressure ridge background a.png|thumb]]

The ice pressure ridge remind us that agency is not a property that is possessed by individual readers, researchers and authors. Our ways of becoming knowledgeable always correspond intra-dependently with many other agential forces, both human and non-human.

When the spread of Covid-19 was declared a pandemic it shaped an ice-pressure ridge that was so immense, that it not so much required me to redirect- as it asked me to re-position. Both figuratively and literally.

=Making a New Home=

In 2019, at the start of my doctoral studies I relocated to Katarokwi; Kingston, Ontario on the traditional homelands of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabek and Huron-Wendat nations. I had never intended this move to Kingston to be only a launch pad for my research in Inuit Nunangat. I arrived ready to commit- aspiring to make Kingston my new home.

The first months after my arrival were filled with activities to learn about- and build a relationship with this land, the communities on it, and its stories. I immersed myself, for my hope was that this place could perhaps eventually become a new home for me. Which it did, in multiple ways, over time. The building of these relationships however became somewhat more complicated from 2020 onwards. The COVID-19 pandemic ended up uprooting me from all my home-bases, both Dutch and Canadian.

=The Netherlands in Isolation=

After the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, and I was able to catch a flight out of Coral Harbout, I initially chose to take shelter in my country of origin; the Netherlands. I stayed there for three months, after which the first wave of covid-19 had seemed to have passed. Having a high-risk parent, I did not take shelter in my family home in the Netherlands, and as a result I initially had to pay rent apartments both in Kingston and the Netherlands. After the first two months of self-isolating in Amsterdam, I moved in with my sister and her family, where I slept on an airbed and shared a room with my 2-year old nephew. Despite a lack of privacy, it was nice to be close to family. I preferred it above being alone in an apartment.

[[File:Selfportrait during lockdown.jpg|thumb|Selfportrait during lockdown]]

Nevertheless, my commitment to be present, and make a new home in Canada- combined with the financial stresses of double rent- eventually drew me back to Ontario at the first seemingly reasonable opportunity.

=Kingston in Isolation=

The reality of returning to Canada as an international student, during the Covid-19 pandemic, was- while I acknowledge my privilege of being able to stay safe and healthy- rough for me. Once back in Ontario, I was stuck in my tiny apartment by myself, without a university campus to go to, or access to the regions in which I would have to conduct my fieldwork. I wrote a lot. In the year that followed, between my return to Kingston in the late Summer of 2020 and the Summer of 2021, I worked on what would eventually become the testimonial reading of Gjoa Haven’s voices of Thunder.

By April 2021, I received the news that I was the recipient of a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, and by the end of June 2021 I had to return to the Netherlands for family matters. During this latter trip, I was offered an affordable apartment in Amsterdam- and decided, considering the ongoing uncertainty of Covid-19 pandemic to accept it. One month later, In July 2021, I received the news that we could travel to Nunavut again for fieldwork, and Canada slowly started to open up again.

From July 2021 onward, I continued my PhD in a state of flux. I would come to Canada for fieldwork, and spent an average of six weeks up North each trip. I would then stay, on average, another six weeks in Ontario. Usually I would spend up to twelve weeks back home in the Netherlands, before I would return again to Canada.

This rotation was possible because of my decision in September 2020 to purchase a campervan: "Butter". As a result of this purchase, my time in Canada took a completely different shape in comparison to what it had been before.

<span class="next_choice">
You have found a way to return to Cut 1 and learn more about the creative outputs, through which we were planning to share Gjoa Haven's Voices of Thunder.

Alternatively, you can accept an invite to tag along and take a ride in "Butter". This ride will allow you to learn about the opportunities that Covid-19 brought to my research, before returning to Cut 1.</span>

<span class="return to cut 1 link" data-page-title="Voices_of_Thunder" data-section-id="5" data-encounter-type="return">[[Voices of Thunder#3.2 Multiple voices|Return to cut 1: Voices of Thunder]]</span>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Conference_calls_from_the_road" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Conference_calls_from_the_road|Invitation: Thinking from the Road During Covid-19]]</span>

Voices of Thunder

2025-01-12T11:11:06Z

77.174.243.90: /* Joining the BearWatch Project */

"We want our “Voices of Thunder” to echo everywhere. We want everyone to know what happened to us. We seek acknowledgment and apologies for suffering the consequences of the quota regulations; a loss of culture and knowledge, as well as increased danger due to the rising number of polar bears around our communities. Inuit knowledge in terms of accuracy and inherent value needs to be recognized and better acknowledged. We want better integration of Inuit knowledge in survey research, like for example accounting for seasonal changes. Scientific monitoring surveys have limitations, we ask that researchers will recognize and take Inuit observations more seriously".

Gjoa Haven HTA, 2021

=Gjoa Haven=

[[File:GjoaHaven2021Aug25_1_1.mp4|border|centre|600px|Uqshuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven) filmed by Peiwen Li (2021)]]

This is a view across Uqshuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven). Uqshuqtuuq is pronounciated: [uq.suq.tuːq], meaning "lots of fat" in Inuktitut, the language spoken by Inuit, referring to an abundance of marine animals like seals. Its English name is pronounced : [Joe.ha.ven] was given by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, during his Northwest passage expedition, after his wooden ship "Gjoa". Gjoa Haven is the only hamlet on King William Island located in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut, Canada. Its current population is estimated around 1400 people.

I visited Gjoa Haven for the first time in 2021.

However, by then I already knew quite a bit of about the history of polar bears hunting restriction in Gjoa Haven.

=Quota Reduction Impacts=

Polar bears are managed per Polar Bear Management Unit (PBMU). Hunters from Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak share the M’Clintock Channel (MC) PBMU (see figure 1).

[[File:(color) Figure 1 Map of the MC PBMU..jpg|thumb|500px|Map of the M’Clintock Channel Polar Bear Management Unit area (Vongraven and Peacock, 2011). Adapted with permission to include the locations of Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak, who each hunt within this area.]]

Before 2001 the hunting quota for polar bears in the MC PBMU averaged 33 bears annually (US FWS, 2001). However, due to worries about over harvesting this quota was reduced to only 3 bears annually after 2005 (NWMB, 2005), and between 2001 and 2004 the MC PBMU was even subjected to a three-year polar bear moratorium (a full suspension of hunting). Gjoa Haven and Cambridge Bay signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB) for alternating quotas of one and two tags per year until 2015, while Taloyoak did not sign the MOU at all, and therefore did not receive any tags from the MC management unit between 2001 and 2015.

Both Taloyoak and Cambridge Bay- unlike the residents of Gjoa Haven- however, also have traditional hunting grounds outside of the MC PBMU. So, when the quota was so drastically reduced, the community of Gjoa Haven was disproportionately impacted. No other community in Nunavut or the Northwest Territories has experienced such a (near) moratorium over such an extended period of time. After two generations of hardly being able to hunt polar bears, Gjoa Haven hunters still seek recognition for the impacts such quota-decisions have had in terms of lost income, loss of culture, and loss of intergenerational knowledge transfer.

<span class="next_choice"> This cut follows the collaborative practices of researchers in the BearWatch project and multiple Gjoa Haven community members while they record and seek to share the impacts of these quota reductions widely across multiple audiences. You are invited trail along.

But before you keep going, notice that you have stumbled upon a Vista. This Vista is a viewpoint, it will help you orient. It is called "The Ethical Space of Engagement". Perhaps it will help you direct your course along the way.
</span>

<span class="pop-up vista link" data-page-title="Ethical_Space_of_Engagement">[[Ethical Space of Engagement|Vista: The Ethical Space of Engagement]]</span>

=Joining the BearWatch Project=

Indeed, in the summer of 2019, two workshops were co-organized to discuss and document community testimonies on the multiple impacts of the polar bear quota reductions on Gjoa Haven hunters and other community members.

The recordings of these workshops and its accompanying notes were transferred to me in 2020, after I had just started as a new PhD student on the BW project. I was requested to describe Gjoa Haven’s experiences in an academic publication for a larger academic audience.

I had however not yet set foot in the community of Gjoa Haven, and such an "assignment" made me feel uneasy; Who was I to write an academic paper that conveyed the lived experiences of people who I had never even met? The most straightforward solution to these questions seems to organize a call with the Gjoa Haven HTA, and have a conversation about what they expect from such a publication. The Principle Investigators of the project are supportive, and are willing to organize a meeting.

<span class="next_choice"> What would you do?

"Keep going" to set-up this call.

Or, first gather more information on the workshops that were conducted in 2019, detour to Cut 3.

Or, "Stay with the Trouble", to explore some of the complexities you sense to underly this project, considering that the BearWatch project and its non-Inuit researchers seem to be entangled with the larger apparatus of science-based polar bear management that have contributed to the impacts as shared in the workshop.</span>

<span class="pop-up stay-with-the-trouble link" data-page-title="Politics_of_recognition" data-encounter-type="Stay with the trouble">[[Politics of recognition|Stay with the trouble: The Politics of Recognition]]</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning" data-section-id="7">[[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning#6. Workshops Summer 2019|Cut 3: "Workshops Summer 2019"]]</span>

=Ongoing Conversations=

The choice to continue having conversations with the Gjoa Haven HTA board and other community representatives about what they were seeking to achieve by sharing their testimonies with us, was crucial to negotiating a more responsive space for collaboration. Not only did it provide for opportunities to collectively discuss how to process, interpret and present the workshop recordings, but it also helped in gaining a shared understanding of the purpose to which the Gjoa Haven HTA had requested such workshops in the first place.

We arranged a total of five separate meetings between the Gjoa Haven HTA, myself, and three BearWatch PI’s- each lasting about three hours. Due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic the first three of these meetings- and thus also my introduction to the HTA-board- took place by remote conference phonecalls in the fall of 2020.

During these meetings we navigated together how to proceed with the experiences that were shared during the impact workshops. These calls were not pre-structured or accompanied by an agenda, but we did turn to a series of critical questions suggested by Linda Tuhawali Smith (1999) to guide us in our conversations; “What research do we want to do? Who is it for? What difference will it make? Who will carry it out? How do we want the research done? How will we know it is worthwhile? Who will own the research? Who will benefit?” Among multiple other insights, this led to a clear articulation of the main objective of Gjoa Haven HTA representatives for publishing the experiences shared in the workshops- which we collectively formulated as follows;

''‘We want our “voices of thunder” to echo everywhere. We want everyone to know what happened to us. We seek acknowledgment and apologies for suffering the consequences of the quota regulations; a loss of culture and knowledge, as well as increased danger due to the rising number of polar bears around our communities. Inuit knowledge in terms of accuracy and inherent value needs to be recognized and better acknowledged. We want better integration of Inuit knowledge in survey research, like for example accounting for seasonal changes. Scientific monitoring surveys have limitations, we ask that researchers will recognize and take Inuit observations more seriously’.''

The Gjoa Haven HTA seeks recognition. The kind of recognition that they seek is however multifaceted. Beyond acknowledgement and apologies for the quota reduction impacts, the Gjoa Haven HTA also seeks validation, and better “integration ” of their knowledge in research and management. The Gjoa Haven board also speak of wanting to have their voices of thunder “echo everywhere” - a vision of broad dissemination that extends beyond the scientific community, towards other Nunavut communities and wider Canadian society. Aside from the politics of recognition that are connected to academic publishing, by itself, it would likely not achieve the reach of audience that the HTA was seeking. To more completely pursue such desired forms of wide recognition, we realized that additional avenues of knowledge creation were needed in parallel to academic publishing.

<span class="next_choice">Keep on going to learn more about these different avenues for knowledge creation. Or take a minute to dwell on the material circumstances under which those first calls were made.</span>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Conference_calls_from_the_road" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Conference_calls_from_the_road|Invitation: Thinking from the Road During Covid-19]]</span>

=Multiple Voices=

Based on our conference calls, and also meetings in Gjoa Haven itself over the Summer of 2021, we were able to set a course. In addition to academic scholarship, we decided to co-create multiple audio/visual outputs, and one-pager communications,. Output like video and websites are better formatted for broad dissemination through publicly accessible venues like social media, and the internet. One-page communications are on the other hand more suitable for political advocacy.
Across the summer of 2021, and spring 2022, we arranged for an eight-week period of in-person co-creation and conversations in Gjoa Haven on how to proceed in sharing Gjoa Haven’s “Voices of Thunder”. During these periods, we discussed potential knowledge outputs and forms of writing- or otherwise- presenting the experiences shared in the workshops. We constructed narrative sequences and in 2021 we also started to co-produce one of our three main knowledge outputs; the motion graphic documentary In 2022, we reviewed versions of our academic paper, reconfirmed the meaning of several of the statements that were quoted in the workshop recordings through additional conversation, and we screened edited versions of several videos we had co-produced prior. Part of these processes was also to navigate the subject-position of the academic scientists in ‘telling’ these stories of quota reduction impacts for the community, in an ongoing manner.
Our conversations included discussions on the challenge of presenting Gjoa Haven’s voices and objectives, without the academic partners speaking for them. Instead of reproducing yet another damage-centered study that portrays an Indigenous community primarily as ‘broken, emptied, or flattened’ (Tuck, 2009), or the social scientists as an invisible and elevated ‘purveyor of voices’ for those that are suggested to be “voiceless” (Spivak, 1988 ; Simpson, 2007; Tuck and Yang, 2014 p.226)- we explored how exactly each of our voices could be appropriately leveraged within different knowledge products, including as part of writing an academic paper. For example, in the motion graphic documentary, the experiences shared by the workshop participants speak through the voices of Gjoa Haven community members themselves. In the academic paper, on the other hand, the voices of the BW scientists are more prominently present. Not through the employment of theoretical frameworks and methodological analysis to translate, validate or otherwise explain the experiences shared by Gjoa Haven’s HTA representatives, hunters and community members, but rather by conducting a direct, ‘unromantic’ (Jones and Jenkins, 2008), “testimonial reading” (Boler, 1997).

<span class="next_choice">You pass a landmark. Maybe you have seen it when you stopped earlier to check out the Vista: The ethical Space of Engagement. Now, however, you are looking at it from a particular angle, and it gives you an insight about “multiple sites of enunciation”. Do you want to take a closer look at the landmark, and see how the different voices at play have positioned themselves in each form of output? Or do you keep going and learn more about “testimonial reading”?</span>

<span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Multiple_sites_of_enunciation" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Multiple sites of enunciation|Landmark: Multiple sites of enunciation]]</span>

=Testimonial Reading=

To conduct a ‘testimonial reading’ of the experiences of Gjoa Haven’s community members, is to move beyond passive empathy, and towards an acceptance of testimon y that requires bearing responsibility. It asks the recipient of such testimony to commit - to rethink their assumptions, to challenge the comfortable concept of being a ‘distant’ other, and to recognize the power-relationships between the “reader” and the testimonial “text” (Boler, 1997). By conducting such a testimonial reading of the experiences shared by Gjoa Haven community members, we can both engage with the experiences shared in the workshop, ànd with the appeal of the Gjoa Haven HTA for wider recognition.

Terms like ‘testimony’ or ‘witnessing’ are ideologically and politically loaded. They furthermore may mean different things within different contexts. To ‘witness’, when considered in the context of this cross-cultural research collaboration, doesn’t take up the western legal definition of being an (eye)witness as it would in the context of a legal court. It rather takes up meaning that aligns more with the ways in which it was applied in the public fora of Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Committee hearings. Witnessing, as defined in schedule N and later on the TRC website (TRC.ca), is to take responsibility for ‘accepting testimony’ on historical events, even if one hasn’t directly experienced these events themselves. This form of witnessing is active. It is not merely listening. To witness, is to enter into a very specific and powerful relationship between witness and storyteller (see Nock, in Gaertner, 2016 p.138). This form of witnessing is particularly important to Indigenous cultures that use oral traditions. “Oral traditions form the foundation of Aboriginal societies, connecting speaker and listener in communal experience and uniting past and present in memory.” They are “the means by which knowledge is reproduced, preserved and conveyed from generation to generation” (Hulan & Eigenbrod, in Gaertner, 2016 p.139). In other words accepting testimony, in the form of these Indigenous practices of witnessing, comes with responsibilities. Whether emergent from Indigenous traditions, or in following with Megan Boler’s practice of testimonial reading, these responsibilities are to remember- or a commitment to take forward, teach others and spread the word accepting testimony is not a passive act, nor a one-time event.

=Voices of Thunder Testimonies=

The act of accepting testimony between Inuit community members and non-Inuit BW researchers began, in this case, when BearWatch researchers responded to the issues brought up by their Gjoa Haven research partners. By resourcing, planning, and co-designing two workshops with Gjoa Haven HTA representatives to take place in the community, the space was created to engage in the kind of attentive listening that is needed to meaningfully accept testimony. This is the kind of attentive listening that changes you, and connects you to the speaker (Nock, in Gaertner, 2016 p.138). The recording and documenting of the process could be understood as another part of accepting testimony; the commitment to “take forward” and “spread the word”. There are however tensions involved with these latter practices when it comes to the cross-cultural partnership of the BW project. Primarily the fact that these understandings of accepting testimony derive from Indigenous traditions. There are risks and power dynamics at play when western, non-Indigenous researchers take on the responsibility of sharing Indigenous testimonies in academic publications- for academic audiences. Different forms of knowledge outputs, presence of voices, and anticipated “listeners” require different approaches to accepting testimony.

Readers that practice community-based wildlife monitoring in the Canadian Arctic will likely find some familiarities across their own research contexts and the context within which the particularities of Gjoa Haven’s experiences have played out. Other readers, on the other hand, may not have much to gain by conducting a testimonial reading alongside non-Indigenous researchers, and would perhaps prefer to only engage with Gjoa Haven’s testimonies directly. As, such readers are suggested to engage with the following sections to the extent that they resonate with their own positionalities.

<span class="next_choice">Before you continue on your way, you look around in all directions to see whether you are still going into your desired direction. Looking back, you see two tracks. Down the track of cut 1, you can just about (still) see a landmark: Multiple sites of enunciation. Although you can’t really engage with it from here, it reminds you that everyone has different places of beginnings, and therefore might travel this path in multiple directions. Down the cut 3 of track you see opportunities to finally go the field- there is a trip lined up to go to Coral Harbour. Where will you go?</span>

<span class="return to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning" data-section-id="8" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning#Coral Harbour First Trip 2020|Return to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BW project]]</span>

=Voices of Thunder Animated Graphic Documentary=

"Voices of Thunder" is a community-created, animated graphic documentary, in which Inuit hunters and elders from the community of Gjoa Haven share how they have been impacted by polar bear management policies in their region over the past two decades.
This animated graphic documentary resulted from workshops conducted in Gjoa Haven over the summer of 2019. In these workshops, Gjoa Haven hunters, elders and a number of individuals from outside of the community shared their experiences on the impacts of severe polar bear quota reductions, implemented between 2001 and 2015 in the Polar Bear Management Unit of M’Clintock Channel (MC) with each other and with several scientists of the Genome Canada BearWatch project. After these workshops, a narrative script was co-created by the BearWatch scientists, Gjoa Haven HTA representatives and several community members, that brought together interpreted quotes from the workshops, with archival materials and academic publications.

The experiences that are shared in this documentary come from 28 different voices that are narrated as ‘we' in this documentary. The narration of these voices happens through the recorded voice of one speaker from the community, while the archival documentation that provides particularized institutional context is narrated by another speaker from the community. To provide transparency on the multitude that is embedded within this ‘we’, we have added all the community members that contributed to the narrative by name at the end of the video.

Voices of Thunder Inuktitut Syllabics version

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Voices of Thunder English version

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<span class="next_choice">There seem to be many tracks entangled with this Motion Graphic Documentary. Moving forward, and following the Voices of Thunder, leads you to some of the other research outputs. However, you can also take multiple detours. One brings you to the film’s synopsis and its poster as it was distributed within the film festival circuit. Another detour set’s you on the track of cut 2: Aesthetic Action, which allows you move alongside the process of film-making within the community. The last option allows you learn more about why this film was made, it will bring you to the beginning of cut 1: Voices of Thunder.</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-1 link" data-page-title="Synopsis_Voices_of_Thunder" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Synopsis Voices_of_Thunder|Detour to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder "Synopsis"]]</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-1 link" data-page-title="Voices_of_thunder" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Voices of Thunder#Introduction|Detour to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder "Places of Beginning"]]</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Aesthetic_Action" data-section-id="9" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary|Detour to Cut 2: Aesthetic Action]]</span>

<span class="return to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning" data-section-id="7" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning#Workshops Summer 2019|Return to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BW project: "Workshops 2019"]]</span>

=Winds of Change Webpage=

As representatives for the larger community, the board had expressed a desire to have the “Voices of Thunder” from the workshops “echo everywhere”. In addition to the motion graphic animation, we responded to this desire by building a “Winds of Change” webpage. The webpage functions as an online advocacy tool and repository for Gjoa Haven’s “Voices of Thunder”, as it gathers much of the other collected material related to Gjoa Haven’s experiences around polar bears. Although this webpage was built by BW researchers, its texts and contents are dictated by the Gjoa Haven HTA board. The voice that speaks of ‘we’ on this webpage, differs from the multitude of individuals and experiences that are narrated in the animated graphic documentary. The voice on this webpage represents a political appeal for recognition as put forward by the HTA board in 2022 as a representative institute. Published in English and [https://gjoahaven.my.canva.site/winds-of-change-inuktitut Inuktitut], including a [https://gjoahaven.my.canva.site/winds-of-change-syll Syllabics] version, it brings together different material resources that have emerged around the creative collaboration between BW scientists and the Gjoa Haven HTA. Some of these outputs, in particular an interactive timeline (see below), available both in Inuktitut- including a syllabic version- and English, function as a reference source for the “Voices of Thunder” animated graphic documentary, and the HTA’s appeal for recognition. Other content on the webpage facilitates insights on the cultural and place-based embeddedness of Gjoa Haven’s appeals, and the way in which people keep polar bear related practices alive. Either through sharing memories, stories and extended insights on human/polar bear relationships, or by remembering family histories and great hunters of the past through drumdancing and Pihhiq’s (ancestral songs). The page also contains video recordings in which several community members share such memories and stories.

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=Voices of Thunder Interactive Slideshow=

During the co-production of the animated graphic documentary, it became clear that in addition to an academic publication, webpage and video production, a third way of presenting the experiences as shared by Gjoa Haven’s community members, might be desirable. A document that would provide all the same information, arts and experiences that were shared in the animated graphic documentary- but could also afford for a more responsive way of interacting with Gjoa Haven’s testimonies. A supplemental form of output to the video and webpage, was created in the form of interactive slides, available in three versions; English, Inuktitut, and Inuktitut syllabics. It was added to the Winds of Change webpage.

English Version Slideshow

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Inuktitut Version Slideshow

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Inuktitut Syllabics Version Slideshow

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<span class="next_choice">You have now been presented with all the audio-visual outputs that were co-created with the community-members. There is however an opportunity to accept testimony in one more way. You can choose to follow alongside the BearWatch researchers in conducting a testimonial reading. Such a reading has been a meaningful way for us, as non-Indigenous researchers, to follow along with some of the guiding principles for reconciliation as put forward by the TRC (TRC, 2015c p. 113). These principles propose an ‘awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour’ (ibid). In other words ‘The TRC (...) puts responsibility for change squarely on the shoulders of all Canadians’ (McGregor, 2018 p.823 emphasis mine)- not just the Indigenous people who take up responsibility for sharing their experiences publicly.

Depending on your own positionality, field of expertise, and the particularities of your research collaborations, our invitation to join along may resonate differently across academic readership. Readers that practice community-based wildlife monitoring in the Canadian Arctic will likely find some familiarities across their own research contexts and the context within which the particularities of Gjoa Haven’s experiences have played out. Other readers, on the other hand, may not have much to gain by conducting a testimonial reading alongside non-Indigenous researchers, and would perhaps prefer to only engage with Gjoa Haven’s testimonies directly, by watching the animated graphic documentary. We suggest that readers engage with this following section to the degree that is fitting with their own positionalities.

Depending on where you place yourself within the larger dynamics of Truth and Reconciliation you may join us in such a reading. Alternatively, you can take a take a short-cut to the current cusp of emergence, and jump straight to the ongoing developments around the Voices of Thunder as they keep unfolding.</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-1 link" data-page-title="Voices_of_thunder" data-section-id="16" data-encounter-type="detour">[[#Another Point of Beginning|Detour to Cut 1: The Cusp of Emergence]]</span>

<span class="return to-cut-2 link" data-page-title=" Point_of_Beginning_(Pre-)workshops" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="return">[[ Point_of_Beginning_(Pre-)workshops |Return to Cut 2: Aesthetic Action]]</span>

=Voices of Thunder Testimonial Reading=

You have decided to follow alongside a group of non-Indigenous researchers of the Bearwatch project as they, i) acknowledge their initial affective responses towards selected testimonies, ii) explore how they may be implicated with the experiences shared by Gjoa Haven community members, and iii) as they make themselves accountable, as part of a research legacy that has neglected to properly recognize and engage with these experiences before.

Megan Boler (Boler, 1997, p.255), who named the method of ‘testimonial reading’, places the act of taking responsibility central in her work. She wrote; ‘’While empathy may inspire action in particular lived contexts (…) I am not convinced that empathy leads to anything close to justice, (or) to any shift in existing power relations’’. To shift such relations, ‘’one must recognize oneself as implicated in the social forces that create the climate of obstacles the other must confront’’ (ibid, p. 257). Suggesting a practice of accepting testimony by which a reader or listener places themselves as implicated with the events one accepts testimony for, aligns with some of the guiding principles for reconciliation as put forward by the TRC (TRC, 2015c p. 113). These principles propose an ‘awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour’ (ibid). In other words ‘The TRC (...) puts responsibility for change squarely on the shoulders of all Canadians’ (McGregor, 2018 p.823 emphasis mine)- not just the Indigenous people who take up responsibility for sharing their experiences publicly.

The recorded process of this testimonial reading is explicitly written from the perspective of several academic scientists of the BearWatch project, in particular that of me and three of the BW Principal Investigators actively involved with the community-based fieldwork in Gjoa Haven.

=Affective Responses=

It is not hard to imagine ourselves, as scientific researchers, to be implicated with the experiences shared by community members from Gjoa Haven. The scientific community is in certain cases even directly addressed by workshop participants. In the figure below, we share three individual quotes from the larger transcript of the 2019 workshops to provide insight into the ways in which some community members consider scientific researchers to be entangled with their experiences around quota setting.

[[File:Testimonials on research GH 2019.png|border|Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven #1, artwork by Danny Aaluk]]

<span class="next_choice">What are your first affective responses to such commentaries on research? “Affect” relates here to your emotions and attitude, as contrasted with the cognitive domain, which refers to knowledge and intellectual skills (Seel, 2012). As part of your journey alongside our testimonial reading, you can start by writing down your initial emotional respons(es) to such concerns and critiques around research. Don’t worry- it is just for yourself.
To transcend passive empathy as non-Indigenous researchers, in the context of the settler-Indigenous reconciliation, we must explore self-implication and our potentials for taking reconciliatory action- while also acknowledging our affective responses (including those of guilt and unsettlement). Such acknowledgements allow for our affective responses to assist us in our processes of reconciliation, rather than hold us back.

In what follows, we invite you further along in our testimonial reading, starting with considering ourselves implicated. However, if you want. You are invited to trail off and find out how we responded to such comments of the community, and what our discussion about these responses was like.</span>

<span class="redirective invitation link" data-page-title="Vulnerability" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="invitation">[[Vulnerability|Invitation: Dwell on Vulnerability in Research]]</span>

=Implication=

Our BW partnership consists of academic- and government researchers, hunters, community representatives, funding bodies, etc., which are each shaped and affected in different ways by the socio-political legacy of (polar bear) research practices in Gjoa Haven. To assume responsibility as academic research partners for our structural alignments in this environment we must understand our agency extends beyond the BearWatch project, as part of the larger apparatus of scientific monitoring and management of polar bears in Nunavut. This is the same apparatus from which the prior (government) research was conducted, that has led to the quota reductions, in Gjoa Haven.

Although the quota reductions addressed in the workshops were informed by government surveys, in the 1970s and 1990s, far before Bearwatch scientists started their research in Gjoa Haven- we argue that our practices are entangled within the same research apparatus that lead to the quota reductions to which Gjoa Haven’s testimonies speak. Part of conducting a testimonial reading is to consider oneself as implicated within the larger structures ‘that create the climate of obstacles the other must confront’ (Boler, 1997, p. 257). This “climate” is what Karen Barad refers to as the agential ‘apparatus” (Barad, 2007 p.). And what Rothberg understands as emerging from collectives, like for example the academic institute or the settler-state, to which one subscribes and in turn becomes implicated with (Rothberg, 2019).

Researchers of the Bearwatch project were initially hesitant to enter this conversation. Despite the expressed urgency of the community, the topic of quota setting was considered as outside of our sphere of influence, and scope of scientific research objectives. Earlier in the research project, for example, some community consultations in Gjoa Haven were described by BearWatch researchers as being ‘highjacked’ with questions from the HTA on how the results of BW would affect quota. This testimonial reading made it possible to acknowledge and recognize the responsibility towards our research partners to listen and engage with their needs and priorities. Following Rothberg, we are not by default guilty of the lack of accountability displayed by previous research partners in Gjoa Haven - but we do carry a responsibility to acknowledge and address the structures and institutes that have made, and continue to make it possible for researchers to avoid accountability and ignore community priorities.

<span class="next_choice">You can detour, to explore the larger apparatus of polar bear monitoring and management. It will likely help you, like it helped us, understand how the BearWatch project is entanglement within the larger apparatuses that sets polar bear harvest quota. Alternatively, you can move straight to the issue of responsibility.</span>

<span class="Pop-up wrecksite link" data-page-title="Nunavut_polar_bear_monitoring_and_management" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="wrecksite">[[Nunavut polar bear monitoring and management|Wrecksite: Nunavut Polar Bear Monitoring and Management]]</span>

=Response-ability=

[[File:Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven -2, artwork by Danny Aaluk.png|border|Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven #2, artwork by Danny Aaluk]]

In our efforts towards taking responsibility as implicated subjects in this field, we have reflected on how Inuit knowledge was engaged with, to achieve one of the main objectives of the BearWatch project; the optimization of non-invasive community-level polar bear monitoring.

Although a testimonial reading, in itself, does not provide a more meaningful approaches to conciliating Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and western-based science in polar bear research, it does help us to make ourselves accountable. Rather than merely expressing sympathy or empathy as passive receivers of Gjoa Haven’s appeals for recognition, it helps us to redirect our gaze inward. It allows us to explore our own practices of engaging with Inuit Knowledge in achieving one of the main objectives of the BearWatch project; the optimization of non-invasive community-level polar bear monitoring.

Not only does this open possibilities to reflect upon and consider different (knowledge) conciliation practices moving forward within the research project and community collaboration. The shift towards implication ourselves, also draws attention to the spaces we inhabit and the conditions that allow for certain affordances for some, and limitations for others. What are for example the implications, and responsibilities that come with our position as witnesses of Gjoa Haven’s testimonies? And what are the implications for readers when witnessing our “witnessing” through this writing. How does it differ from witnessing Gjoa Haven testimonies directly? And how do we hold ourselves accountable in such variable positions?

<span class="next_choice">How do you respond?

Continue to engage with questions of such accountability. Or take detour to find out more about how the Bearwatch researcher engaged with Inuit Knowledge during the research project.</span>

<span class="detour link" data-page-title="Knowledge co-production in BearWatch" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Knowledge co-production in BearWatch|Detour to: Knowledge Co-production in BearWatch]]</span>

=Relational Accountability=

[[File:4.41.png|border|Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven #4, artwork by Danny Aaluk]]

Within Indigenous (research) paradigms of collective responsibility, and intra-dependency- accountability is often quite literally understood in terms of recognizing one’s responsibilities and making oneself accountable to ones more-than-human relations (Wilson, 2008; McGregor, 2009; Kovach, 2021). Traditional understandings of accountability within western academia as the occasional ‘presenting back’ final outcomes of research to partnering communities, come across as distant and disengaged in comparison.

[[File:4.42.png|border|Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven #5, artwork by Danny Aaluk]]

This quote speaks to an expectation, from Gjoa Haven hunters who were present at our workshops, that researchers take responsibility for the social implications of research results that do not translate into preferable outcomes for the communities per se. In the case of Gjoa Haven, many community members expressed feeling like they had to fend for themselves after the considerable cut in polar bear quota. And that the support they were promised, was never delivered.

[[File:4.43.png|border|Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven #6, artwork by Danny Aaluk]]

<span class="next_choice">You look again at the Voices of Thunder slideshow. You take your time, and let each of the testimonies sink in. An emergent insight shapes as you sit at your table. You might not be physically sitting at the kitchen table with the community-members that are sharing all these experiences, but you nevertheless start understanding that you are addressed and asked to carefully take note of what is being shared. It’s a landmark moment of understanding the potency of attentiveness and active listening.

Surrender to your track of thoughts and pay attention to this landmark moment. Or finish the testimonial reading and take stock of this story-so-far.</span>

<span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="Listening_&_Witnessing_landmark" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="Landmark">[[Listening & Witnessing landmark|Landmark: Listening and Witnessing]]</span>

=Another Point of Beginning=

This manuscript describes the transformation of what originally would have been an academic representation of Gjoa Haven’s experiences on the impacts of significant quota reductions, but evolved to a co-creative process of accepting testimony between Gjoa Haven community members and academic researchers within the BearWatch partnership. By choosing to engage in ongoing conversations and collaborate on different research outputs we have been able to engage with the desire for recognition as expressed by several Gjoa Haven HTA representatives in different ways. As part of our considerations, we co-created an animated graphic documentary, built a website and chose to use the medium of academic publishing as a platform to question the responsibilities that university-based researchers have towards some of the impacts described by Gjoa Haven’s testimonies as implicated subjects. This choice has not only redirected us away from a damage-centric approach where dominant actors get to passively engage, consume, or grant a hearing to ‘usually suppressed voices’ (Jones and Jenkins, 2008), but also opens a pathway to exploring reconciliatory action based on a premise of responsibility and difference.

The “Voices of Thunder” Animated Graphic Documentary has been screened multiple times in Gjoa Haven. Its final cut was screened first for the HTA in a special meeting, and then as part of a smaller gathering in which community members that either featured, or co-produced the film- to gain final feedback, before the last render. The film was then screened after a sponsored feast for the whole community, as part of a festive opening of our final workshops, in combination with several other short videos that we shot. After these workshops the film was shared in the Gjoa Haven community Facebook page, with the explicit call to share the movie and show it to friends and family within and outside of Gjoa Haven. It was also screened at several academic conferences related to the (Canadian) Arctic and wildlife management. Among them was a plenary screening at the Annual Science Meeting of ArcticNet in Toronto, 2022, and it was screened as an opening movie during Critical Arctic Studies conference in Rovaniemi, 2023. We furthermore circulated the movie in the film festival circuit, where it got accepted and screened at several relevant festivals like; Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival (SVAFMF) in Toronto, 2023, Aulajut: Nunavut International Film Festival in Iqaluit, 2023, Dawson City International Short Film Festival in Dawson, 2024 and the Available Light Film Festival in Yukon, 2024. Finally, it was taken up in the online collection of imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in 2023.

The film was not only disseminated by BearWatch researchers. The HTA screened the movie at a regional meeting during which the HTA’s of Gjoa Haven, Taloyoak and Cambridge Bay met with the Kitikmeot Regional Wildlife Board. The film was received with praise from the regional board and the other two communities. A Member of the Legislative Assembly, who resides in Gjoa Haven, leveraged the film, together with the “Winds of Change” website in a letter to the Minister of Environment to call attention to Gjoa Haven testimonies and request ‘a detailed update’ on the ‘department’s work with the Gjoa Haven Hunters and Trappers Association to manage this subpopulation’.

As for this manuscript and the testimonial reading. It is clear that a radical shift of self-understanding by many institution-based (non-Indigenous) researchers in relation to their subject(s) and partnering communities is needed. This manuscript invites its readers to engage with Gjoa Haven appeals in different ways- and leave space to choose those that feel more appropriate to ones positioning towards our subject. We nevertheless hope to inspire our academic audience(s), especially those researching wildlife in Nunavut (and beyond), to recognize themselves as structurally implicated in the context that has contributed to the experiences of which the testimonies in this manuscript speak. The strategies used by the academic partners of BW to move beyond passive empathy, and beyond unhelpful categories like innocence and guilt, towards identifying ways to act in solidarity with their community partners could, we hope, serve as helpful considerations for academic researchers committed to challenging the structural injustices faced by the communities they work with.

<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Aesthetic_Action" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Aesthetic Action|Detour to Cut 2: Aesthetic Action point of Beginning]]</span>

<span class="detour to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project_Point_of_Beginning" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning|Detour to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning]]</span>

<span class="detour link" data-page-title="Exploring Polar Bear Research as Ethical Space, Practice and Process of Engagement: Knowledge-land-scape" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Exploring Polar Bear Research as Ethical Space, Practice and Process of Engagement: Knowledge-land-scape|Detour to: the title page]]</span>

Encounters Along the Way

2025-01-08T17:30:40Z

77.174.243.90: /* Another Point of Beginning */

Along the way, whether you are tracing a cut, or making your way along a side-trail, you may encounter a number of different agential phenomena. These phenomena pop-up on the left side of your screen as either; i) Vista’s, ii) Landmarks, iii)Great White Beasts, or iv) Shipwrecks. Each of those figures have emerged from my research, and offer different possibilities of meaning making in your journey through this knowledge-land-scape.

<span class="next_choice"> Although you can “keep going”, for this instruction it is important to click on the pop-up image to your left that says “Vista”. You will return to this cut later. </span>

<span class="pop-up vista link" data-page-title="Learning About Vistas">[[Learning About Vistas]]</span>

=Research Creation=

Before you reach the end of this tutorial, it is important to reiterate the fact that this knowledge-land-scape does not provide determinate outcomes or easily packageable take-aways on the “meaning” of knowledge conciliation in community-based polar bear research. The purpose of entering this scape, even when straightforwardly tracing my cuts, is not to gather take-away resultss, but rather to help you attune to the practices, processes and spaces within which such knowledge conciliation can become possible in the first place.

To consider knowledge conciliation as a repositioning rather than as a data-driven endeavour, redirects the focus away from results at a predetermined ending, towards a focus on movements along the way. Without even guaranteeing the materialization of their desired outcomes. In accordance with such a shift, many of my research “outputs” and research creations, are shared along the way, where and when they produced, rather than at an anticipated ending of a cut. Not only does this better reflect the non-linear nature of knowing along-the-way, it also saves an awkward moment when my research cuts do not seem to translate into clear endings and conclusions, but rather consist of detours, “stories-so-far’, and “other places of beginning”. After all, like all scapes, this knowledge-land-scape might have boundaries, but it doesn’t have determinate endings.

<span class="next_choice"> Detours do not only exist within “stories-so-far”, they are offered across the knowledge-land-scape. When you take a detour, you may not always find a path to return to your current cut, so think carefully before you detour. If you hover over the “detour” button, before clicking it, it will reveal where the detour will take you. In this case, if you hover over the button, it will show you that the detour will bring you to the “Terms of Engagement” page.

Do not click the detour button for now. Keep going.
</span>

<span class="detour link" data-page-title="Terms of Engagement" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Terms of Engagement|Detour to the Terms of Engagement]]</span>

=Another Point of Beginning=

Eventually all cuts run into other points of beginning. These are not conclusive endings to this work, but rather perform a cusp of emergence- a story so-far. Some of these points mark the end of funding cycles or research projects, or mark the limitations and scope of this particular PhD dissertation. Others are trails, and tracks that have faded out, as they remained un-revisited. These other points of beginning mark one moment along an ongoing animate line of correspondence.and they usually allow for making another cut.

<span class="next_choice"> You have finished the instruction tutorial. Return to the homepage and embark on your journey. </span>

<span class="return to homepage link" data-page-title="Homepage" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="return">[[Homepage|Return to Homepage]]</span>

Encounters Along the Way

2025-01-08T17:30:10Z

77.174.243.90: /* Research Creation */

Along the way, whether you are tracing a cut, or making your way along a side-trail, you may encounter a number of different agential phenomena. These phenomena pop-up on the left side of your screen as either; i) Vista’s, ii) Landmarks, iii)Great White Beasts, or iv) Shipwrecks. Each of those figures have emerged from my research, and offer different possibilities of meaning making in your journey through this knowledge-land-scape.

<span class="next_choice"> Although you can “keep going”, for this instruction it is important to click on the pop-up image to your left that says “Vista”. You will return to this cut later. </span>

<span class="pop-up vista link" data-page-title="Learning About Vistas">[[Learning About Vistas]]</span>

=Research Creation=

Before you reach the end of this tutorial, it is important to reiterate the fact that this knowledge-land-scape does not provide determinate outcomes or easily packageable take-aways on the “meaning” of knowledge conciliation in community-based polar bear research. The purpose of entering this scape, even when straightforwardly tracing my cuts, is not to gather take-away resultss, but rather to help you attune to the practices, processes and spaces within which such knowledge conciliation can become possible in the first place.

To consider knowledge conciliation as a repositioning rather than as a data-driven endeavour, redirects the focus away from results at a predetermined ending, towards a focus on movements along the way. Without even guaranteeing the materialization of their desired outcomes. In accordance with such a shift, many of my research “outputs” and research creations, are shared along the way, where and when they produced, rather than at an anticipated ending of a cut. Not only does this better reflect the non-linear nature of knowing along-the-way, it also saves an awkward moment when my research cuts do not seem to translate into clear endings and conclusions, but rather consist of detours, “stories-so-far’, and “other places of beginning”. After all, like all scapes, this knowledge-land-scape might have boundaries, but it doesn’t have determinate endings.

<span class="next_choice"> Detours do not only exist within “stories-so-far”, they are offered across the knowledge-land-scape. When you take a detour, you may not always find a path to return to your current cut, so think carefully before you detour. If you hover over the “detour” button, before clicking it, it will reveal where the detour will take you. In this case, if you hover over the button, it will show you that the detour will bring you to the “Terms of Engagement” page.

Do not click the detour button for now. Keep going.
</span>

<span class="detour link" data-page-title="Terms of Engagement" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Terms of Engagement|Detour to the Terms of Engagement]]</span>

=Another Point of Beginning=

Eventually all cuts run into other points of beginning. These are not conclusive endings to this work, but rather perform a cusp of emergence- a story so-far. Some of these points mark the end of funding cycles or research projects, or mark the limitations and scope of this particular Phd dissertation. Others are trails, and tracks that have faded out, as they remained un-revisited. These other points of beginning mark one moment along an ongoing animate line of correspondence.and they usually allow for making another cut.

<span class="next_choice"> You have finished the instruction tutorial. Return to the homepage and embark on your journey. </span>

<span class="return to homepage link" data-page-title="Homepage" data-section-id="1" data-encounter-type="return">[[Homepage|Return to Homepage]]</span>